40 PREVENTING OF SITTING, &C. 



Leaving a number of eggs in the nest is an entice- 

 ment. Very frequently a lien will cluck, and ap- 

 pear hot for incubation, yet, after sitting over her 

 eggs a sufficient number of hours to addle them, 

 will then desert them : and, probably, in the course 

 of a few days, will be taken with another fit of incu- 

 bation. 



Much useless cruelty is too often exercised, to 

 PREVENT the hen from SITTING, when eggs, rather 

 than chickens, are in request ; such, for example, as 

 immersing her head, or whole body in water, which 

 I have witnessed with regret, the hen, as soon as dry, 

 running to her nest, although the dipping has been 

 repeated several days following. But, granting nature 

 could be thus put out of her course, it is not probable 

 that eggs would be obtained earlier than by suffering 

 the hen to sit, since the improper treatment, and the 

 disappointment combined, are nearly an equal impedi- 

 ment both to laying and sitting. 



I am sorry to see a late useful and well-written 

 publication disgraced by barbarities similar to those 

 above described. The author, unreflectingly without 

 doubt, recommends to thrust a feather through the 

 hen's nostrils, in order to prevent her from sitting ; 

 and to give her half a glass of gin, then swing her 

 round until seemingly dead, and confine her in a pot, 

 during a day or two, leaving her only a small breath- 

 ing hole, to force her to sit! It is full time that 

 these and a hundred other such utterly useless and 

 barbarous follies of former days, practised upon vari- 

 ous animals, should be dismissed with the contempt 

 they merit. The pamphlet alluded to, is The Epi- 



