THE SITTING HEN. 49 



the fertile eggs will get more heat, and the brood come out 

 all the stronger. The sterile eggs are also worth saving, as 

 they are quite good enough for cooking purposes, and quite 

 as fresh even for boiling as nine-tenths of the Irish eggs 

 constantly used for that purpose. 



It is a common mistake to set too many eggs. In 

 summer, a large hen may have thirteen, or a Cochin fifteen 

 of her own, but in early spring eleven are quite enough. 

 We have not only to consider how many chickens the hen 

 can hatch, but how many she can cover when they are 

 partly grown. If a hen be set in January, she should not 

 have more than seven or eight eggs, or the poor little 

 things, as soon as they begin to get large, will have no 

 shelter, and soon die off. It is far better to hatch only six 

 and rear five, or may be all, to health and vigour, than to 

 hatch ten and only probably rear three puny little creatures, 

 good for nothing but to make broth. For April and May 

 broods, such a limitation is not needed ; but even then 

 eleven or twelve chickens are quite as many as a large, 

 well-feathered hen can properly nourish, and the eggs 

 should only be one or two in excess of that number. 



A good hen will not remain more than half an hour 

 away from her nest, unless she has been deprived of a dust- 

 bath, and so become infested with lice, which sometimes 

 cause hens thus neglected to forsake their eggs altogether. 

 When a hen at the proper time shows no disposition to 

 return, she should be quietly driven and coaxed towards 

 her nest; if she be caught and replaced by hand, she is 

 often so frightened and excited as to break the eggs. A 

 longer absence is not, however, necessarily fatal to the 

 brood ; and it is no use, and only makes matters worse, to 

 be over-fidgety. People who know the most always fuss 

 the least. We would rather a hen went back in twenty 

 minutes ; but if she stayed half an hour we should let her, 

 E 



