MAKING THE NEST. 37 



ensure good hatching in hot weather, when perhaps all the 

 neighbours are complaining that their chicks are dead in the 

 shells. Attempting to keep the nest and eggs dry has ruined 

 many a brood. It is not so in nature ; every morning the 

 hen leaves her nest, and has to seek her precarious meal 

 through the long wet grass, which drenches her as if she had 

 been ducked in a pond. With this saturated breast she 

 returns, and the eggs are duly moistened. But if the nest be 

 dry, the hen be kept dry, and the weather happen to be hot 

 and dry also, the moisture within the egg itself becomes dried 

 to the consistency of glue, and the poor little chick, being 

 unable to move round within the shell, cannot fracture it, and 

 perishes. Such a mishap will not happen if the ground under 

 the nest be damp and cool. All that is necessary in such a 

 case is to scrape a slight hollow in the bare earth, place the 

 nest-box, already described, over it, and put in a moderate 

 quantity of straw, well broken ; or, still better, some fresh-cut 

 damp grass may be put in first, and the straw over. Shape the 

 straw also into a very slight hollow, and the nest is made ; 

 but care must be taken to well fill up the corners of the box, 

 or the eggs may be rolled into them and get addled. Some 

 prefer to put in first a fresh turf, and this is a very good plan. 

 Always make up a hatching-nest with perfectly fresh and clean 

 materials. 



Should an egg be broken in the nest (and the nest should 

 be examined every two or three days, when the hen is absent, 

 to ascertain), the eggs must be removed, and clean straw sub- 

 stituted, and every sound egg at all soiled by the broken one 

 be washed with a sponge and warm water, gently but quickly 

 drying after with a cloth. The hen, if very dirty, should also 

 have her breast cleansed, and the whole be replaced immediately, 

 that the eggs may not be chilled. A moderate hatch may 

 still be expected, though the number of chicks is alway* more 

 or less reduced by an accident of this kind. If, however, the 



