THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 113 



length, three feet in breadth, and three feet in height. 

 It had no connexion with the walls against which it 

 was placed, nor the table on which it stood ; its regu- 

 lating power was within. According to Mr. Bucknell, 

 the English inventor and proprietor of this machine, 

 which some years ago excited great attention, the 

 eccaleobion possessed a perfect and absolute command 

 over temperature from 300 F. to that of cold water, 

 so that any substance submitted to its influence was 

 uniformly acted upon over its whole surface at any 

 required intermediate degree within the above range, 

 and such heat maintained unaltered without trouble 

 or difficulty for any length of time. Hence, by means 

 of this absolute and complete command over the tem- 

 perature obtained by this machine, the impregnated 

 egg of any bird, not stale, placed within its influence 

 at the proper degree of warmth, at the expiration of its 

 natural time, was elicited into life without the possi- 

 bility of a failure, which is sometimes the case with 

 eggs subjected to the caprice of their natural parent. 

 During the public exhibition of this instrument thirty 

 or forty thousand chickens, perhaps more, were stated 

 to have been brought into existence by a single ma- 

 chine, which was constructed to contain two thousand 

 eggs at a given time. These chickens, with proper 

 attention and under suitable treatment, were said to 

 grow as healthy and strong as those under a parent's 

 care. Of course, artificial mothers, warmth, a dry soil, 

 and proper buildings would be needed. What might 

 not be expected from a multiplication of these ma- 

 chines, or their formation on a larger scale ! 



The polotokian, also, was a similar contrivance for 

 hatching, by means of heated air, established in 1843, 

 on an extensive scale, by Mr. E. Bayer, of Brooklyn, 

 New York. He succeeded admirably well, as far as 

 the producing of chickens was concerned, in the process 

 of hatching, not losing over 20 to 25 per cent, of the 

 eggs. The most congenial temperature at which the 

 eggs were exposed, during the process, he found to be 



