HATCHING AND REARING 



an impertinent manner. He is a l)ird of 

 delicate tastes, has a sweet tooth, and 

 knows what is nice ; and will, if he goes 

 on at his present rate, probably be soon 

 a candidate for the sick ward. The way 

 in which he pnts his head down and peers 

 under and over little Verdant Green's tail 

 is the embodiment of cool im])iidcnce ; and 

 before one can see how the thing is done, 

 out comes a juicy feather, which he turns 

 over in his mouth like a choice cigar, 

 evidently with a keen relish, and having 

 finished it, marks his man down in a remote 

 corner and repeats the operation. The 

 appearance of the latest arrival's tail 

 naturally attracts a considerable amount 

 of attention, and the force of bad example 

 is quickly apparent. There were but twelve 

 feathers in the inch of tail to begin with, 

 so as there are now two missing from one 

 side, some friend commences on the other 

 side to restore the balance ; and as birds 

 do not usually do things by halves, they 

 soon finish him up entirely, stripping him 

 bare, literally not leaving him a feather to 

 fly with — a most j^itiable spectacle, bleed- 

 ing profusely from every wound. This is 

 not in the slightest degree over-drawn, and 

 it does not take long either to bring about 

 the catastrophe- WTien a bird begins to 

 be so maltreated, it must be removed at 

 once, for its feathers will never be per- 

 mitted to grow. It will live in a state of 

 chronic nakedness, absolutely more bare 

 than \\hen it issued from its shell. 



The trouble, too, will not stop here, 



for once the habit is acquired by one or 



two, the whole group in the 



„?" ^,.° flight become depraved, and. 

 Plucking. " ' . 



unless checked, every bird 

 in the flight will be practically stripped of 

 feathers. Such a condition of afl'airs, if 

 allowed to go on, has often a disastrous 

 ending, for many of the birds die owing to 

 their nude condition. Even when they 

 do not succumb to such treatment, many 

 malformed feathers grow in the tail and 

 wings ; a tail feather grows wrong side 

 up or turned half side-ways, through the 

 cell from which the feather grows having 

 been injured by repeated plucking. This 



misplaced tail feather throws all the others 

 out of their natural fold, and the bird 

 is rendered totally unfit for the show 

 bench. The same deformity will occur at 

 times in a wing, and therefore an equally 

 sharp eye must be kept on young birds in 

 flights, and any attempt at ])lucking 

 nip]ied in the bud, by removing, not the 

 bird that may have lost a feather or two, 

 but the bird that plucked those feathers 

 out. The scam]) must be isolated, for 

 when once he has had a taste of the blood 

 in the feather he will continue the habit, 

 and his removal to a cage by himself will 

 not only effectually stop the plucking, 

 but jjrevent others acquiring the habit, 

 which, in young birds, one sex is just 

 as guilty of as the other. Possibly another 

 may take up the rimning as soon as one 

 culprit has been removed, so a sharp 

 look-out shoidd be kept. This vice is a 

 common one mitil the moult is over, and 

 a bunch of shepherd's purse or seeding 

 chickweed — with practically no leaves on 

 it, but just full of seed — or a ninnber of 

 plantain seed stalks fixed between the 

 wires of the cage in various parts for them 

 to strip, will often prevent plucking 

 amongst young birds. Another remedy 

 is to tie a number of short lengths of 

 twine or tape to the wires of the cage. 

 Young birds must have something to play 

 with for the first few months of their 

 lives, and they will spend hours pulling 

 and tugging at such things as we have 

 mentioned instead of their companions' 

 feathers. 



This digression on plucking has thrown 

 us off our track a little, but remem- 



The Second 

 Brood. 



bering that oiu* hen going 



to nest for her second 

 " round " was the occasion 

 of it, brings us to our starting-point again. 

 As at the close of autunm the seasons 

 appear to overlap each other, and the 

 gardener in the pursuit of his calling 

 seems to wish to do two things at the 

 same time, and occupy the same piece of 

 groimd with two crops, so we seem to 

 want to do two things at the same time 

 in our cage. We want the hen to be 



