THE GAME FOWL. 261 



ment, (the darker the better,) where, if possible, the sun shines 

 through a single crevice. Hold the Egg up to the ray of light, 

 and if it is bound to hatch, all below the vacuum in the " butt" 

 will be dark-coloured opaque j if not, it will be light-coloured 

 and yellowish, and not entirely impervious to the sunshine. It 

 sometimes happens a whole batch is worthless. In this case, 

 it is better that a Hen should cover them eight or ten days, 

 than twenty. 



With double-yolked Eggs I have tried some experiments, 

 always putting them under Hens, if in season. And though 

 I have thus treated more than twenty, I have never got a live 

 Chicken. The first year I had my Creoles, one of the Eggs 

 was double, and I put it under with the rest. When the brood 

 was all hatched, I opened it , and, to speak pathetically, there, 

 in the repose of death, lay two perfect disunited Chickens. 

 They did not possess strength enough to get out. This is the 

 nearest I ever came to success. In the same season, an ordi- 

 nary-looking Egg, of the same Hen, when half hatched, was 

 accidentally broken. I took it from the nest, and discovered, 

 to my astonishment, an embryo, with two beaks, and almost 

 two entire heads. The heads branched at the eye, exhibiting 

 a perfect eye on the outside of each caput, and a deformed or 

 double one between them. In two or three other cases, the 

 vital principle of the one half seemed to germinate for a time, 

 but, probably on account of the barrenness of the other half, 

 never came to maturity. But in a large majority of the cases, 

 I might as well have set my Hens with bricks. 



Talking of unnaturals, reminds me of a young Cock I once 

 had, whose legs were frozen off at the knees. He grew to be 

 a fine healthy Fowl ; and, the next summer, stumped it about 

 as gaily and as gallantly, as his more fortunate brothers. A 

 black man, who sometimes worked for us, was exceedingly 

 anxious to procure the breed; because, as he said, "dey 

 couldn't scrashde garden/' 



