54 OUR DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



a wooden door would. According to the 

 weather, this routine is kept up for eight, ten, 

 or twelve days ; the fires are then altogether 

 discontinued, the heat retained in the ovena 

 being sufficient to maintain the necessary 

 temperature. As the time of hatching draws 

 nigh, a number of the eggs are now removed 

 from the lower tier of rooms, and put into the 

 upper rooms, and all are more spread out, to 

 allow the unimpeded exit of the chickens from 

 the shell, which takes place on the twenty-first 

 day ; and which, if the eggs were all huddled 

 together, would be attended with some diffi- 

 culty. Thus, without a thermometer to appeal 

 to, and trusting to his own sensations as a 

 guide in the regulation of temperature, and to 

 tact, the result of experience, for management, 

 does the Bermean successfully exercise his art, 

 which has descended in Egypt from times of 

 antiquity, surviving every change. That such 

 a plan would succeed in our humid, changeable 

 climate is, indeed, very problematical, nor is it 

 ever likely to be attempted. 



All birds require, while young, the mother's 

 care ; and though the true gallinaceous birds 

 feed themselves in the course of a few hours 

 after exclusion from the egg, still they need 



