ARTIFICIAL MOTHERS. 239 



bag resting on the eggs, and answering the purpose of 

 the hen. From eighty to ninety per cent, of the eggs 

 are duly hatched. 



Such au invention seems needed to increase the 

 supply of poultry, which, in our great towns, is sold 

 at an exorbitant price, and would be often unattainable 

 at any price, were it not for the supplies received from 

 the Continent. 



Supposing the artificial hatching of eggs to be per- 

 formed on a large scale, it follows as a necessary con- 

 sequence that there would not be enough hens to take 

 care of them. Our French neighbours have provided 

 for this want in a very ingenious manner. Keaumur, 

 the naturalist, who was very successful in hatching eggs 

 by artificial means, invented an apparatus called an 



ARTIFICIAL MOTHERS. 



Artificial Mother, for supplying to the young chickens 

 the warmth they would have had beneath their mother's 

 wings. At first he thought that they might be reared 

 for a fortnight or three weeks in the oven where they 

 had been hatched, taking them out five or six times 

 a day for food and water. But this plan, although it 

 kept the chickens in warm air, did not supply to them 

 the comfort and warmth of the mother's feathers gently 

 pressing on their backs, as she sits over them. The chick- 

 ens themselves showed this want, for instead of squatting, 



