112 HiSTOKY OF 



■greatest advantage. By these contrivances it has been obtained 

 that a hen, that ordinaiily produces but twelve chickens in the 

 year, is found to produce as many chickens as eggs, and conse- 

 quently often above two hundred. The contrivance I mean is 

 the artificial method of hatching chickens in stoves, as is prac- 

 tised at Grand Cairo ; or in a chymical elaboratory properly 

 graduated, as has been effected by Mr Reaumur. At Grand 

 Cairo they thus produce six or seven thousand chickens at a 

 time ; where, as they are brought forth in their mild spring, 

 which is warmer than our summer, the young ones thrive with- 

 out clutching. But it is otherwise in our colder and unequal 

 climate ; the little animal may, without much difficulty, be 

 hatched from the shell ; but they almost all perish when exclud- 

 ed. To remedy this, Reaumur has made use of a woollen hen, 

 as he calls it ; which was nothing more than putting the young 

 ones in a warm basket, and clapping over them a thick-woollen 

 canopy, I should think a much better substitute might be found ; 

 and this from among the species themselves. Capons may very 

 easily be taught to clutch a fresh brood of chickens throughout 

 the yeai ; so that when one little colony is thus reared, another 

 may be brought to succeed it. Nothing is more common than 

 to see capons thus employed ; and the manner of teaching them 

 is this : first the capon is made very tame, so as to feed from 

 one's hand ; then, about evening, they pluck the feathers oflf his 

 breast, and rub the bare skin with nettles ; they then put the 

 chickens to him, which presently run under his breast and belly, 

 and probably rubbing his bare skin gently with their heads allay 

 the stinging pain which the nettles had just produced. This is 

 repeated for two or three nights, till the animal takes an affec- 

 tion to the chickens that have thus given him relief, and conti- 

 nues to give them the protection they seek for : perhaps also the 

 querulous voice of the chickens may be pleasant to him in misery, 

 and invite him to succour the distressed. He from that time 

 brings up a brood of chickens like a hen, clutching them, feed- 

 ing them, clucking, and performing all the functions of the ten- 

 derest parent. A capon once accustomed to this service, will 

 not give over ; but when one brood is grown up he may have 

 another nearly hatched put under him, which he will treat with 

 the same tenderness he did the former. 



The cock, from his sulaciousness, is allowed to be a short- 



