ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION. 265 



latitude is allowable, both in the natural and the artifi- 

 cial processes. In fact, when wild birds of any species 

 incubate and rear, there are fluctuations of weather and 

 atmospheric conditions that would cause failure if it 

 were necessary to maintain every requisite to an absolute 

 nicety. On account of this latitude artificial hatching 

 is not extremely difficult, although no human art has 

 ever made or ever will make as perfectly regulated and 

 operated a hatcher as is the live natural one. 



Experts in the artificial process, especially if they are 

 incubator manufacturers or dealers, sometimes insist 

 that the artificial method beats the hen, and are fond of 

 citing the cases of unfaithful birds deserting or break- 

 ing their eggs, etc. Granted that, although the habits 

 of all wild species are uniformly exemplary in this 

 regard, long domestication has impaired the incubating 

 traits of some domestic breeds and utterly destroyed 

 those of others, crossing with which from time to time 

 has introduced uncertainties of results more or less into 

 some flocks ; yet the point is this, given the very best 

 incubator, run by the very best operator, in the very 

 best cellar, with the very best eggs ; and compared with 

 the very best hen, set on the very best eggs, in the very 

 best nest, located in the most suitable place, and the hen 

 is decidedly the most perfect. No man can ever con- 

 struct a fabric that will equal a feather, or a mechanism 

 which will control heat, moisture and ventilation as 

 wonderfully as the mother hen's body with its feathered 

 covering. 



