112 EGGS! THEIR PRESERVATION 



and when it does come, the Hen will take to the empty nest, 

 if there be nothing else for her to incubate. Any one whose 

 Hens have from accident been deprived of a male companion, 

 will agree with me in saying that they have not done so well 

 till the loss has been supplied. During the interregnum, mat- 

 ters get all wrong. There is nobody to stop their mutual bick- 

 erings, and inspire an emulation to please and be pleased. The 

 poor deserted creatures wander about dispirited, like soldiers 

 without a general. It belongs to their very nature to be con- 

 trolled and marshalled by one of the stronger sex, who is a 

 kind, though a strict master, and a considerate, though stern 

 disciplinarian. It does not appear what should make Hens 

 lay better under such forlorn circumstances as are recommended 

 in the Perth paragraph. They will sit just the same, when the 

 fit seizes them, and so will Ducks ; as may be seen amongst 

 those cottagers who, to save the expense of barley, keep two 

 or three Hens or Ducks only, and procure from a neighbour a 

 sitting of Eggs, as they want them. It has been stated by 

 Reaumur, who is a high authority, that clear or unfertile Eggs 

 will keep good longer than those that would be productive ; 

 but it is doubtful whether the difference is so great as to make 

 it worth while keeping the Hens in a melancholy widowhood 

 on this account. The most natural and least troublesome way 

 of having a winter supply of Eggs, is to procure pullets hatched 

 early in the previous spring, and to give them all they can eat 

 of the best barley, or, if expense be disregarded, of the finest 

 wheat. But all people are not so nice about their Eggs, par- 

 ticularly during a long sea-voyage.* For example, " It was 

 upon one of the islands that I went on shore, and I found there 

 such a number of birds, that when they rose they literally 



* " Much depends on taste in matters of this sort ; and we once 

 had a Londoner on a visit, who ' heaved the gorge ' at the milk of 

 new-laid Eggs, but ate Scotch Eggs with much satisfaction." J. S. W. 



