134 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



experiments, repeated incessantly, and with such 

 assiduity as almost to tire out his patience, he was 

 unsuccessful in hatching a Single chicken by means 

 of dung*, though he at length succeeded in doing so 

 by a different method. Success, as Thevenot informs 

 us, also attended an experiment made in Tuscany, 

 but it was under Egyptian direction; for the grand 

 duke, in order to indulge the laudable curiosity long 

 characteristic of the house of Medici, sent to Egypt 

 for a person skilled in the management of the 

 process. 



Modern travellers, who mention the art as prac- 

 tised in Egypt, are very deficient in their details ; 

 but we ought to wonder the less at this when Father 

 Sicard informs us that it is kept a secret even in 

 Egypt, and is only known to the inhabitants of the 

 village of Berme, and a few adjoining places in the 

 Delta, who leave it as an heir-loom to their children, 

 forbidding them to impart it to strangers. When the 

 beginning of autumn, the season most favourable for 

 hatching, approaches, the people of this village dis- 

 perse themselves over the country, each taking the 

 management of a number of eggs entrusted to his 

 care by those unacquainted with the art. The sub- 

 sequent operations consist, first, in the building of 

 suitable ovens ; and, secondly, in causing the eggs 

 placed there to be subjected to a regular heat. The 

 mystery does not, however, lie in the construction 

 of the oven, for the outside is not only open to all, 

 but strangers are even allowed to witness the curious 

 process going on in the 'interior. The grand secret 

 is the manner of causing the eggs to be warmed 

 that the chickens may be gradually developed, and 

 at last hatched. The most essential condition of this 

 process consists in keeping the eggs at the proper 

 degree of temperature, and consequently in knowing 

 how to manage the fire that heats the oven. 



