PAIRING AND SITTING 



105 



addition to the sol't food and the canary 



and rape-seed, already alkided to, a small 



teaspoonful of equal parts of niger, gold of 



pleasure, and maw-seed be given twice a 



week, and a little chickweed, watercress, 



young dandelion leaves or lettuce be 



fvuniished, the cock will be all the more 



assiduous in feeding his mate. 



Meanwhile the hen will begin to show 



signs of a desire to build. If she have only 



a felt or swansdown-lined nest. 



1^®**; she will pull and tug at it the 



building. , , , ' , 



day through, constantly gettmg 



into it antl " scuffling '" with her feet and 

 wings in her endeavours to adapt it for 

 use. Nov/ is the time to supply nesting- 

 stuff, but only very sparingly, because 

 till she begins to build in real earnest she 

 will only waste the material to an un- 

 limited extent. So long as there is any 

 hair or moss to be had from the rack by 

 pulling it through between the wires, so 

 long will she continue to pull at it. carry 

 it to her nest, throw it out again, and 

 scatter it about in the cage bottom. To 

 allow this is to countenance sheer waste, 

 for this stuff, when once soiled, will never 

 be used for its intended purpose. It seems 

 as though, for a time, her object were 

 nothing but amusement. This activity, 

 however, is beneficial to the hen while 

 her eggs are developing, and a small piece 

 of building material, as explained earlier, 

 will answer the piu'pose as well as a bunch ; 

 indeed, a single feather will occupy her 

 constant attention, and this she will carry 

 backwards and forwards to her nest all 

 day long. Something of the kind she inii.sf 

 have, or she will purloin a feather from the 

 cock's tail or disligure him by plucking 

 him whenever she can get a sly pull. Some 

 hens are very ill-mannered in this respect. 

 When it is seen, however, that the hen 

 is really beginning to construct her nest, 

 remove all soiled stuff and give a fresh 

 supply, and the fancier will be rewarded 

 in the course of a few hours by a Avondcrful 

 display of skill. She takes a mouthful of 

 moss, pulling it from the bunch a sprig at 

 a time, hops away to her nest, pops it in, 

 and then pops herself in on it, with a quiet 

 14 



pantomimic expression that seems to say, 

 " There is no deception, I assure you. I 

 take this small piece of moss and drop it 

 into my nest, so ; then in I drop, so ; 

 three turns and a scuffle, and where is it 

 now ? — the quickness of the foot deceives 

 the eye. Now I take a small piece of hair, 

 so, and I drop // in — there's no deception ; 

 three more turns and another scuffle. 

 Now take a peep ; you see I have woven 

 a piece of tapestr\'. Richard ! a mouthful 

 of egg, if you please, and don't forget a 

 bit of maw-seed this time." And so the 

 work goes on, the cock occasionally popping 

 up to see how it is progressing and looking 

 very wise over it, till at length the little 

 nest — we cannot use a prettier word — is 

 completed and lined out daintily with the 

 snowy-white hair, encircled by a Iringe 

 of curly moss, behind which the little hen 

 settles herself down full of happy pride, her 

 shining black eyes glistening with love 

 while her mate bursts into song, answered 

 in a chorus which makes the room echo 

 by half-a-dozen friends, who are just as 

 busy as themselves, and are also having 

 a house - warming. Some hens continue 

 building until they have laid their first 

 egg. and in some instances even the second 

 and third, but in the general way the nest 

 is completed before the first egg is laid. 



There will not be much alteration in the 



position of affairs for a day or two, but by 



that time the hen will have become more 



sedate and matronlv. and 



Laying=time. -^^^-^^^-^^^^ ^,f ^he" little 



event which is shortly to come off will 

 be manifest ; indeed, what may be ex- 

 pected in the morning can generally be 

 foretold with tolerable certainty the night 

 before. The situation is not now entirely 

 free from danger, and the first duty of a 

 breeder on visiting his room in the morning 

 is to notice whether all his hens which 

 ought to have laid have done so, or if any 

 are making heavy weather of it. Some 

 phenomena, however, occasionally present 

 themselves, startling in appearance, but 

 which need not cause serious apprehension. 

 It will sometimes happen that the day 

 before a hen lavs she will be seen in the 



