42 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



From the tenth day all the parts of the young chicken 

 are well formed. The little being, softly suspended 

 in its hammock by means of the two suspending 

 cords that untwist little by little to give more room 

 as it grows, is bent over on itself, the head folded 

 against the breast and hidden under its wing. Note, 

 my friends, that it is precisely this attitude of deep 

 sleep inside the egg that the hen assumes when she 

 wants to sleep. Crouched on her perch, she again 

 folds her head on her breast and tucks it under her 

 wing, just as she did when she was a little chicken 

 in its shell. 



"In the meantime the little bird keeps growing on 

 the yellow and white matter; matter which soaks 

 and penetrates it and, vivified by the air, becomes 

 its blood and its flesh. One day it breaks the thin 

 membrane under the shell, and there it is more at 

 ease with the increase of space given it by the air- 

 chamber. Now an attentive ear can distinguish 

 feeble peepings inside the shell ; it is the seventeenth 

 or eighteenth day. A couple of days more, and the 

 young chicken, summoning all its strength, will ap- 

 ply itself to the arduous work of deliverance. A 

 pointed callosity, made expressly for the purpose, 

 has formed on the upper part of the tip-end of the 

 beak. Here is the tool, the pick, for opening its 

 prison; a tool for that particular purpose and of 

 very short duration, which will disappear as soon 

 as the shell is pierced. With this provisional pick, 

 the little chicken begins to hammer the shell; perse- 

 veringly it pushes, strikes, scratches, until the stone 



