232 THE POULTRY-BOOK. 



unfruitful. For this purpose, hold the egg between your hands 

 in the sunshine ; if the shadow which it forms waver, keep the 

 egg, as the wavering of the shadow is occasioned by the motion 

 of the chick within ; if it remain stationary, throw it away. If 

 your eggs have been very fresh laid, the chick will be developed 

 earlier than otherwise ; if they have been fresh, you will, 

 about the sixteenth day, if you apply your ear to the egg, hear 

 a gentle piping noise within ; if the eggs have been stale, this 

 will not be perceptible until about the eighteenth day ; and, at 

 this time, the yolk, which had previously lain outside and 

 around the chicken, will now be gradually entering into the 

 body of the bird. This serves as nourishment to the little pris- 

 oner until his subsequent efforts shall have set him free. From 

 this period let your attention be assiduous, but, at the same 

 time, cautious : for the hen has heard the cry before you have, 

 and all her maternal anxieties and tenderness are, from that 

 moment, greatly augmented, and any unnecessary interference 

 will only tend to irritate her." 



In Mr. Dickson's opinion, the characters by which one hen 

 may be chosen in preference to the other, for giving her the 

 management of her chickens, are a full-sized breast, and a 

 great compass of wings, in order that the chickens may be 

 gathered together by the hen under her, and thus kept from 

 unhealthy chills. 



From the same eminent author we cannot forbear the quota- 

 tion of the following beautiful remarks on the maternal char- 

 acter of the hen, as an appropriate conclusion to this chapter : 



" The tenderness and solicitude of the hen for her little 

 ones, and the alteration which maternal love has produced in 

 her temper and her habits, are really worthy of admiration. 

 Previously, she was ravenous, insatiable, vagrant, and timid ; 

 but as soon as she becomes a mother, she becomes frugal, gen- 

 erous, courageous, and intrepid ; she assumes, indeed, all the 

 qualities that distinguish the cock, and even carries them to a 



