CHARACTERS AND HABITS OF BIRDS 23 



cannot, as it lies, strike it a direct blow with the point of its beak. 

 This scale is a remarkable character. Its only use is to help the 

 bird out of the shell. A few days after exclusion it disappears. 



If you take a hen's egg about the eighteenth or the nine- 

 teenth day of incubation and hold it closely in your hand, you 

 may be able to feel the chick move. If your hand is a little bit 

 cold, the chick is much more likely to squirm in the egg and 

 may utter a peep. If, .with the egg in a warm hand, you hold it 

 to your ear, you will about this time hear an occasional tap, 

 tap, caused by the chicken striking its beak against the shell. 

 The tapping is kept up more or less steadily until the shell 

 cracks where the point of the beak strikes it and a little piece 

 is broken out. The chick usually rests awhile now, perhaps 

 for some hours, then resumes the attack on the shell. It turns 

 in the shell, breaking out little pieces as it turns, until there is 

 a crack nearly all the way around, when, by pushing with its head 

 and feet, it forces the shell apart and sprawls out of it. 



The process is the same for all birds, except that those that 

 take longest to develop in the shell take a longer rest after first 

 breaking it. The young of aerial birds, which are naked when 

 hatched, are ugly little things. Young poultry, too, are almost 

 repulsive with their sprawling forms and the wet down plastered 

 to the skin, but in a few hours they grow strong, the down dries 

 and becomes fluffy, the bright little eyes seem to take in every- 

 thing, and they are the most attractive of all baby animals. 



