PACTS OBSERVED Itf HATCHING. 133 



to the time of the hatching of the chickens, the 

 creature having taken an affection for the eggs, 

 which she was fond of having under her, for some 

 reason not easily assigned, though assuredly not 

 with the desire of hatching chickens *." 



Pliny seems to infer that the story of the Empress 

 Livia gave origin to " the device of late, to lay eggs 

 in some warme place and to make a gentle fire un- 

 derneath of small straw or light chaffe, to give a kind 

 of moderate heate ; but evermore the eggs must be 

 turned by man or woman's hand both night and day, 

 and so at the set time they look for chickens and had 

 themt." But though such experiments may have 

 been then revived, they were assuredly not new, for 

 they are mentioned by Aristotle and Diodorus, though 

 in a rather vague manner. Aristotle says that eggs 

 may be warmed and chickens hatched in the earth, 

 probably deducing such an inference from the circum- 

 stance of the eggs of crocodiles and other reptiles 

 being thus hatched. In the same way he appears to 

 have been thinking of the eggs of snakes which 

 are hatched in dung-hills, when he tells us that 

 in Egypt they cover eggs with dung in order to 

 hatch chickens, a circumstance quite impossible, 

 as we shall presently see. Diodorus is more par- 

 ticular in detailing the process, which consisted, he 

 says, in filling a vessel with the dung of fowls 

 passed through a sieve, over which were laid 

 leathers, and upon these the eggs, with their smallest 

 ends upward ; the eggs were then covered with a 

 similar layer of feathers and dungj. Cardan, in 

 commenting on this passage, says, the dung both 

 below and above ought to be put into pillows . 



M. Reaumur, however, assures us that all this 

 must be pure fancy ; for after a whole year's varied 



* L'Art de faire Eclorre, chap. i. f Holland's Plinie, x. 55. 

 I Aldrovandi Ornilhologia, ii. De Subtilitate. 



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