70 THE REARING AND 



of rearing such chicks are small, but if they get over the first 

 twenty-four hours they may be considered as safe. But all 

 the old wives' nostrums to recover them are to be discarded : 

 the merest drop of ale may be a useful stimulant, but an in- 

 toxicated chick is as liable to sprawl about and have the breath 

 trodden out of its body as a fainting one. Pepper-corns, gin, 

 rue, and fifty other ways of doctoring, are to be banished afar, 

 together with their subjects, namely, 



"All the unaccomplished works of Nature's hand, 

 Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixed, 

 Embryos, and idiots, eremites, and friars, 

 Into a Limbo large and broad, since called 

 The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown" 



The only thing to be done, is to take them from the Hen 

 till she is settled at night, keeping them in the meanwhile as 

 snug and warm as possible. If a clever, kind, gentlehanded 

 little girl could get a crumb of bread down their throats, it 

 would do no harm ; but all rough, violent, clumsy manipula- 

 tion is as bad as the throat-tickling of the hard-fingered hang- 

 man. Animal heat will be their greatest restorative. At 

 night let them be quietly slipped under their mother; the 

 next morning they will be either as brisk as the rest, or as flat 

 as pancakes and dried biffins. 



Those who have ever undertaken the amusing task of tending 

 a brood of chickens from the shell, must have observed the 

 great change of apparent size which the first few hours pro- 

 duce. At the time when I had an affectionate assistant in 

 such matters, we used often to remark, how impossible it 

 would be to re-pack again in the same shell the creature which 

 was contained in it only a little while ago. We certainly 

 never tried the experiment, but the eye could measure with 

 some degree of accuracy, besides allowing for the elastic coat 

 of down which before had been flattened by moisture. How 

 could the vivacious little wretch have made such a sudden 



