110 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



Keep your hen-house most particularly clean, and 

 often whitewashed. The nests should he made of 

 dry heather {Erica tetralix) — the badge, by the way, 

 worn in the bonnet of the Macdonald — and small 

 branches of hawthorn, covered with white lichen. 

 (Richardson.) You will so cheaply save your sitting 

 hens much torture : the effect of the frayed hoary 

 bark produces a large amount of powder, which is as 

 drops of stingo to the plaguy parasite, whose name 

 is legion, that is ensconced within the feathers of the 

 unhappy fowl, attempting to relieve themselves of 

 which you see hens roll so in a dust-hole when they 

 can. If by any accident — and accidents will happen 

 in the best-regulated families — a fowl or duck should 

 break its leg, having washed the wound and set the 

 bone, a bit of elder twig, hollowed of its pith, and 

 split, affords a capital pair of splints. For further 

 information on this head consult Ferguson's Practical 

 Surgery t and forgive me the bother this reading has 

 cost you. 



