Nests — Eggs barren. 53 



The only method of safety in this case, is to 

 keep such a cock in the house, upon tfie 

 best and most nourishing food, turning the 

 hens to him several times in the day, and 

 permittinghim to be abroad an hour or so, 

 tiie weather hQ\ng fine, until in a few weeks 

 he shall be accustomed to the air. 



In making the nests, short and soft 

 straw is to be preferred, because the straw 

 being long, the hen on leaving her nest, 

 will be hable to draw it out with her claws, 

 and with it the eggs. The hen, it is as- 

 certained, will breed and lay eggs without 

 the company of a cock ; in course, such 

 eggs are barren. I confined a hen with a 

 pheasant cock, which was never observed 

 to attend her ; she laid twenty-nine eggs, 

 all which proved barren. It may be said 

 that she had previously associated with a 

 cock, but that the attentions of one w^ere 

 also subsequently necessary, to render the 

 eggs perfect and prolific ; such fact, never- 

 theless, does not negative the other, of a 

 hen's breeding eggs entirely independent 



