88 NESTS EGGS BARREN. 



in such a high state of temperature, that they are 

 Unable to endure the open air of the country, unless 

 in the summer season. Such being removed in au- 

 tumn, winter, or early spring, if immediately turned 

 abroad with hens, are liable to become aguish, torpid, 

 and totally useless, perhaps, in the end, turning roopy 

 or glandered. The only method of safety in this case, 

 is to keep such a cock in the house, upon the best 

 and most nourishing food, turning the hens to him 

 several times in the day, and permitting him to be 

 abroad an hour or so, the weather being fine, until 

 in a few weeks he shall be accustomed to the air. 



In making the NESTS, short and soft straw is to be 

 preferred, because the straw being long, the hen, on 

 leaving her nest, will be liable to draw it out with her 

 claws, and with it the eggs. The hen, it is ascertained, 

 will breed and lay eggs without the company of a 

 cock ; of course such eggs are barren. I confined a 

 hen with a pheasant cock, which was never observed to 

 attend her ; she laid twenty-nine eggs, all which proved 

 barren. It may be said, that she had previously asso- 

 ciated with a cock, but that the attentions of one were 

 also subsequently necessary to render the eggs perfect 

 and prolific ; such fact, nevertheless, does not negative 

 the other, of a hen's breeding eggs entirely independent 

 of the male, as is confirmed by the circumstance of 

 parrots, and other birds in cages, laying eggs without 

 the possibility of a cock approaching them. According 

 to Buffon, a hen being properly attended by the cock 

 for a few days, should she then be separated from him, 

 the eggs laid by her during a month thereafter would 

 be fruitful. 



