178 GAME PRESERVERS AND BIRD PRESERVERS. 



as possible, and many a whole sitting of eggs 

 is saved. Yet many men wlio should know 

 better will keep putting on unwilling hens, 

 thinking that if the lid of a box is shut, so that 

 she cannot stand upright, she must sit and hatch 

 the eggs, until some morning they find them 

 scattered all about, and the mischief is done. 

 And we shut the slides at niglit as a protection 

 from rats, and to prevent any hen coming off 

 before we feed them, as when they do this the 

 eggs get cooled twice. We mention these 

 little matters, because it is attention to these 

 trifles which makes the difference between suc- 

 cess and failure. 



Hens will occasionally kill every chick as 

 soon as it is hatched, so watch them with the 

 first. We have had them kill pheasants and 

 Hack grouse, and the only brood of red grouse 

 we hatched were all killed but one. As no other 

 hen was hatching on that day, we trusted him 

 to a motherly old turkey who had just begun 

 to sit, and she was very kind to him for two 



