FOR INCUBATION. 117 



" After a Hen has sat a week, if you have a thin board with 

 a small orifice in it, place a candle at the back, and hold up 

 each Egg to the point of light ; you will see at once whether 

 the Eggs are fertile, when of course the others may be removed, 

 and made use of hard boiled for young chickens. This hint 

 I got from Mr. Cantelo's Exhibition, where the number of 

 Eggs made it a great desideratum : but, in any case, it is much 

 better to remove the bad Eggs." W. D. F. 



Now we are on the subject of hatching, we may as well refer 

 to the perplexity to which Poultry-keepers are sometimes sub- 

 jected, when Hens will sit, at seasons of the year at which 

 there is little chance of bringing up Chickens. Some advise 

 the Hen to be soaked in a pail of water cold from the pump : 

 but if they have a mind to kill her, it is more cruel to do so 

 by giving her fever and inflammation of the lungs, than by 

 simply knocking her on the head. A less objectionable 

 remedy, communicated by a gentleman who is not likely to 

 speak unadvisedly, is the following, of which, however, I have 

 no personal experience. "I have known one or two doses of 

 jalap relieve them entirely from a desire to sit; and, in my 

 opinion, it is far better than the cold-water cure. I have 

 known English Fowls lay in three weeks afterwards." But 

 why not let the*poor creatures obey their natural propensity ? 

 Or, surely, some neighbour would gladly exchange a laying 

 Hen for one that wanted to sit. Others, borrowing an ancient 

 piece of barbarism,* recommend a large feather to be thrust 

 through her nostrils; that she may rush here and there in 

 terror, and give up all thoughts of sitting. The person who 



* "The inclination to hatch is prevented by thrusting a small 

 feather through the nostrils." Columella, lib. viii., cap. 5. Pliny 

 more humanely prescribes the same operation as a cure for the roup, 

 " pituita." "A feather thrust through the nostrils, and moved every 

 day :" a seton, in fact. Lib. x., c. 78. 



