Assistance, 75 



Here skilful assistance is wanted from the 

 attendant, which very few possess. Reu- 

 mar, the greater part of whose observations, 

 «uch, I mean, as I have found leisure to at- 

 tend to, appear to me correct, says the 

 women of most countries in his time (1747) 

 were in the habit of dipping the eggs in 

 warm water, and suffering them to remain 

 in it a short time, on the day of hatching, 

 from the presumption of rendering the shell 

 more tender and easy to be penetrated by 

 tlie bills of the chickens. This, however, is 

 a useless, perhaps injurious labour, since the 

 ihell of a boiled egg does not prove sen- 

 sibly less hard ; and granting it did, would 

 isoon reassume its primitive hardness, from 

 exposure to the air and evaporation. 



Assistance in hatching must not be 

 attempted prematurely, and thence un- 

 necessarily, but only in the case of the 

 chick being plainly unable to extricate it- 

 self: so indeed, an addition may probably 

 be made to the brood, as great numbers are 

 always lost in this way. 'i'he chick makes 

 a circular fracture of the big end of the egg, 



e2 



