822 



and after they learn the trick, dandelions 

 v^ill get to be a great part of their diet. 



EGG -TESTERS — SOMETHING NEW IN THE 



LINE. 



In my hand is a circular describing a new 

 invention for testing eggs. A whole tray- 

 ful of eggs is taken out of the incubator and 

 set over a box containing several tungsten 

 electric globes. The strong light from these 

 lamps coming up through the wire bottom 

 of a tray of eggs illuminates them sufficient- 

 ly so the unfertile eggs may be picked out 

 from the fertile ones without handling the 

 eggs separately at all. Now, this reminds 

 me of something that I have neglected to 

 mention before. A little over a year ago I 

 sold my Buckeye incubator to a lady in 

 Florida, who lived next door. When I ask- 

 ed her about testing, she informed me that 

 she tested the whole trayful at once by set- 

 ting them on the carpet before a small south 

 window. The strong light of our Florida 

 sun came through an otherwise darkened 

 room, and struck that tray of eggs and il- 

 luminated them sufficiently so the fertile 

 germs were all plainly visible on the fourth 

 or fifth day without handling the eggs. I 

 have never tested a trayful in that way; but 

 I have accidentally laid eggs down in a ray 

 of sunlight, where the fertile germ was plain- 

 ly visible. But 1 must confess there is 

 something about it I do not fully under- 

 stand. You must have your eye in a cer- 

 tain position regarding the sunlight, and 

 your eye must be in the shade. Several 

 times in handling eggs from sitting hens, 

 say after they have been incubated about a 

 week, I by chance brought theiiv into a ray 

 of sunlight -while the egg was in my hand, 

 so that the spiderlike blood-veins were plain- 

 ly visible. At the present time I am not 

 using an incubator; but I ask the friends 

 who are doing so to experiment a little and 

 report, and see if it is not possible to test 

 eggs by the trayful without handling them 

 singly. Our friends who are hatching 

 chickens by the thousand would find such 

 an arrangement a great help. The Reflex 

 egg-tester is furnished by the Eureka Mfg. 

 Co., Pekin, 111. ft is made to be operated 

 by electricity, or by lamplight where a cur- 

 rent can not be obtained. 



The circular referred to above threatened 

 infringers who presumed to make use of his 

 invention without buying a machine. Now, 

 from the clipping below, from Green's Fruit 

 Groiver, it would appear that it is by no 

 means a new discovery after all. I am sure 

 that any poultryman is at perfect liberty to 

 use such a machine if he choo&es. 



A million eggs a day are received at New York, 

 and all must be tested. The eggs are unloaded 

 Irom a big case into a machine tester and passed 

 along In front of the operator who sits opposite a 

 reflector. The only light that reaches this reflector 

 must go through the eggs. They are then passed on 

 by an automatic tray. By this machine 72,000 eggs 

 have been tested in 4^2 hours. By the old method it 

 would have taken a week or more to do the same 

 work. Several of these machines are in use on 

 Market Street in this city for candling the eggs 

 each day as they come from Kansas. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



THE VOCABULARY OF THE POULTRY- YARD; 

 OR, THE LANGUAGE OF FOWLS. 



If you don't take it already, be sure to 

 send five cents for the April number of the 

 American Poultry Journal (Chicago) ; or, 

 better still, send fifty cents for a whole year; 

 for the opening article from our old friend 

 H. H. Stoddard is well worth the price to 

 any one who loves chickens and is anxious 

 to understand their talk. Friend S. de- 

 scribes their language so far as to indicate 

 43 different words or expressions, and I can 

 indorse the greater part of them, and I 

 would add at least one more. When you 

 catch a chick that is partly tamed it utters 

 a most plaintive, pleasing note, half way 

 between fright and half alarm. It is such 

 a pleasing (or pleading) babyish appeal 

 that I almost always restore it to the flock 

 again. It seems to say in words, "Oh! 

 please, please let me go; don't you notice 

 how my little heart is beating with fright ?' ' 

 and when set down, there is the prettiest 

 note of gratitude and thanks. 



A few days ago I gave 28 chicks, right 

 from the incubator, to a Leghorn hen that 

 had been only one night on a nest of 

 eggs. She looked at the bright little fam- 

 ily for quite a while, apparently undecided, 

 but finally ventured just one brief little 

 note, almost under her breath. Let us 

 pause a moment right here, I might almost 

 say "with uncovered heads," as in the pres- 

 ence of the great Ruler of this stupendous 

 universe. 



These chicks never sav/ a mother hen un- 

 til this moment, and it is not at all certain 

 she ever saw a chick before. Notwithstand- 

 ing, from that wonderful instinct in her 

 makeup, she uttered a low brief "pass- 

 word." In a second every one of the 28 com- 

 prehended the language that was a part of 

 their very makeup inside the eggshell, and 

 every chick of the 28 gave a quick and 

 prompt answer. Just then I laughed out 

 loud ("right in school ^ ); and she, becom- 

 ing frightened, uttered another word of 

 warning and alarm; and every "mother's 

 son" dropped in their tracks as if dead. At 

 first 1 couldn't understand it until I recalled 

 seeing a mother partridge in the woods of 

 northern Michigan do the same trick. The 

 young partridges were so much the color of 

 the brown leaves in which they hid that 

 you could hardly decide, as they lay still as 

 death, that they were not leaves. In fact, 

 these young buttercups looked almoot ex- 

 actly like the baby partridges. There they 

 lay or skulked in the grass until she decid- 

 ed the danger was past, and gave a third 

 command to " follow her lead.' Since then 

 she has been a model queen, and her 28 a 

 set of most obedient and loyal subjects. 

 They are now two weeks old, and every 

 chick is as bright and lively as a cricket. 



One more suggestion in closing. Please 

 consider that this language has been the 

 same for centuries, possibly; and as it seems 

 to be the one particular language used by 

 all the domestic fowls, from the bantam to 



