SHELTERING OF THE YOUNG. 137 
four unfiedged skylarks. She took a strong liking 
to these new-comers, which were scarcely younger 
than herself; she attended them night and day, 
cherished them beneath her wings, and fed them 
with her bill. Nothing could interrupt her tender 
offices. If the young ones were torn from her, she 
flew to them as soon as she was liberated, and 
would not think of effecting her own escape, which 
she might have done a hundred times. Her affec- 
tion grew upon her; she neglected food and drink ; 
she now required the same support as her adopted 
offspring; and expired at last, consumed with ma- 
ternal anxiety. None of the young ones survived 
her. They died one after another; so essential 
were her cares, which were equally tender and 
judicious.” 
But in the case of artificial hatching by means 
of ovens, it must frequently be found impossible to 
procure a sufficient number of nurses either of hens 
or capons; and in. that case, in order to rear the 
chickens successfully, artificial methods must be 
continued. Were all the assiduities indeed of the 
hen required, it would be next to impossible to find 
an artificial substitute; but as her chief object is to 
procure food and secure warmth, these, with a little 
attention, may be supplied as well, or even better, by 
art than by the most assiduous mother. Réaumur, 
in the course of his interesting experiments, tried 
several plans for the substitution of what he aptly 
denominates an artificial mother. 
**My apparatus,” he says, “did not at first seem 
suffieiently perfect; for, though the chickens were 
kept in warm air, they had no equivalent for the 
gentle pressure of the belly of the mother upon 
their backs when she sits over them. Their back 
is, in fact, necessarily more warmed than the other 
parts of the body while huddling under their moth- 
er’s wings; whereas their belly often rests on the 
cold, moist earth, the ate of what took place in 
