THE PEOPLE'S PRACTICAL POULTRY BOOK. 19 



ing the first week ; after which coarser food may be given. When fully 

 fledged, give them their liberty in the heat of the day, and house them be- 

 fore sunset. Never permit them to wander in the grass when the dew is on, 

 <as more healthy fowls perish from this than any other cause. The chicks can 

 be fed to good advantage with cracked corn or a mush of potatoes and 

 Indian meal cooked. Feed should be given in small quantities, and fre- 

 quently, during the day. 



CHANGES WHICH AN EGG UNDERGOES IN HATCHING. 



In this connection we trust it will not be deemed out of place to give 

 what we find in an old volume of the Genesee Farmer and Gardeners 1 

 Journal of July, 1833, relative to the wonderful changes which an egg 

 undergoes in hatching, from the first day till its final exclusion, accompanied 

 with three illustrations, showing the first, middle and last stages of the chick. 

 The same article appears in the American Poulterer's Companion, erron- 

 eously credited to an English journal. This process of incubation is thus 

 minutely described : 



FIRST, MIDDLE, AND LAST STAGES OF THE CHICK. 



" The hen has scarcely sat on her eggs twelve hours before some linea- 

 ments of the head and body of the chicken appear. The heart may be seen 

 to beat at the end of the second day ; it has at that time somewhat the form 

 of a horseshoe, but no blood yet appears. At the end of two days, two 

 vesicles of blood are to be distinguished, the pulsation of which is very 

 visible ; one of these is the left ventricle, and the other the root of the great 

 artery. At the fiftieth hour, one auricle of the heart appears, resembling a 

 noose folded down upon itself. The beating of the heart is first observed in 

 the auricle, and afterward in the ventricle. At the end of seventy hours, the 

 wings are distinguishable ; and on the head two bubbles are seen for the 

 brain, one for the bill, and two for the fore and hind part of the head. To- 

 ward the end of the fourth day, the two auricles already visible draw nearer 

 to the heart than before. The liver appears toward the fifth day. At the 

 end of a hundred and thirty-one hours, the first voluntary motion is observed. 

 At the end of seven hours more, the lungs and the stomach become visible ; 



