FOR INCUBATION. 119 



However it is sometimes inconvenient for townspeople to 

 have Hens wanting to sit unseasonably. Mr. Bissell says, "I 

 have been sadly troubled in this way, and have tried almost 

 every known method of getting them to forsake their nests, 

 when I have not wanted them to sit, but without the least 

 effect, until about two years ago I tried the simple plan of 

 placing them in an aviary for about four or five days at most, 

 and, feeding them but sparingly, when they will, from the 

 commencement of their confinement, gradually leave off cluck- 

 ing, and when they have done so, you may again set them free 

 without the least fear of their wishing to take to the nest again; 

 and, besides getting rid of a great deal of trouble with them, 

 they will in a very short time commence laying again with 

 renewed vigour." Keeping a Hen out in a coop on the cool 

 grass for three or four days and nights has a similar tendency 

 to abate the hatching fever. 



One of the most extraordinary feats of hatching on record, 

 is that performed by Pliny's Syracusan drunkard, under whom, 

 as he lay enjoying himself on the ground, some Sicilian wag 

 slipped a sitting of Eggs, which at the proper time became 

 Chickens ! 



Monstrous and misshapen Eggs are not uncommon. They 

 are to be seen in most collections; and an Oologist of ordinary 

 experience would be less puzzled by them, than by unex- 

 pectedly meeting with the Egg of a tortoise. They have 

 given rise to several absurd opinions, the oldest of which is a 

 belief in "Cock's eggs/' abortions of very small size, some- 

 times properly shaped, sometimes shperical, and sometimes 

 contracted in the middle like an hour-glass, with a thick shell 

 and little or no yolk. We had a Hen that laid one every day, 

 till we put a stop to the practice by eating her. Similar 

 lusus have also been produced by the thrush, the linnet, the 

 robin, and the plover. Country-people think t( Cock's eggs" 

 unlucky, and commonly destroy them when they find them; 



