ASSISTANCE IN HATCHING. 47 



three hours ; and generally it may be looked upon as 

 half a day's work : in case of natural or accidental de- 

 bility, the period may be extended to twenty-four or 

 even forty-eight hours, in which case, however, there 

 is seldom much success in the hatching. Here skilful 

 assistance is wanted from the attendant, which very 

 few possess. Reaumur (the greater part of whose 

 observations, such I mean as I have found leisure to 

 attend to, appear to me correct) says, the women of 

 most countries in his time (1747) were in the habit of 

 dipping the eggs in warm water, and suffering them to 

 remain in it a short time, on the day of hatching, from 

 the presumption of rendering the shell more tender and 

 easy to be penetrated by the bills of the chickens. 

 This, however, is a useless, perhaps injurious labour, 

 since the shell of a boiled egg does not prove sensibly 

 less hard; and, granting it did, would soon reassume 

 its primitive hardness, from exposure to the air and 



evaporation. 



Assistance in Hatching 



Must not be attempted prematurely, and thence 

 unnecessarily, but only in the case of the chick being 

 plainly unable to extricate itself: so, indeed, an addi- 

 tion may probably be made to the brood, as great 

 numbers are always lost in this way. The chick makes 

 a circular fracture at the big end of the egg, and a 

 section of about one-third of the length of the shell 

 being separated, delivers the prisoner, provided there be 

 no obstruction from adhesion of the body to the mem- 

 brane which lines the shell. Between the body of the 

 chicken and the membrane there remains a viscous 

 fluid, the white of the egg thickened by the intense 



