HATCHING AND BROODING WITH MOTHER HEN 47 



before they are hatched. This is one of the ways in 

 which we discount the knowledge of our fathers. 

 People say that the Egyptians of thousands of years 

 ago did count their chickens in advance, at least to the 

 extent of offering from the public hatcheries three 

 chickens for every four eggs brought them. But this 

 was banking on the skill of the breeders and of the 

 superintendents of the hatching process. I wonder if 

 the " clever Yankee " has, even yet, reached the point 

 of equaling the bare-legged Egyptian in skill and clev- 

 erness ! 



If you have a reflecting lantern, the easiest tester is a 

 large tube or cylinder of pasteboard, set on end, form- 

 ing a well into which a 

 lantern is dropped. Or, it 

 may be set over a lamp 

 with a large wick. Just 

 opposite the flame, a hole 

 is cut in the pasteboard. 

 I have used heavy build- 

 ing paper. Over this is 

 gummed a bit of black felt 

 or other material impervious 

 to light, itself having a cen- 

 tral hole scarcely an inch 

 and one half in diameter. 



Working in a darkened The Easiest Simple Egg Tester. Set 



the Cylinder over the Lamp 



room, one holds the egg up 



to the hole ; the light, shining through the translucent 

 egg, showing what has taken place inside the shell. 

 With a white-shelled egg, one may test at the end of 

 the fifth day, and plainly see the lively, spidery body 



