APPENDIX. 339 



along with their other food,* or rather before their other food, and 

 only in certain quantities ; for if they are fed too abundantly on 

 what they most relish, they are apt to gorge themselves, and 

 they will seldom refuse meat, however much grain they may have 

 previously eaten. He said that they should be liberally dieted, but 

 not to repletion, that once a day they should be sensible of the 

 feeling of hunger. 



It certainly is most consonant to nature, that the flesh given to 

 the chicks should not be cooked ; and Mr. Cantelo observed that it 

 would be immediately found on trial, that young birds prefer that 

 which is undressed, nay, that which has a bloody appearance. 



He considers maggots (gentles) an admirable diet, and he gave me 

 a valuable hint about them. This is, that they be fattened on 

 untainted meat, placed in the sand-box into which they fall. The 

 pieces of meat will soon be drilled like a honey-comb, and the little 

 crawlers, by becoming in a day or two large and fat, will prove a 

 far more nourishing diet than when given in the attenuated state to 

 which they are commonly reduced, by the present starving process of 

 cleansing. 



Mr. Cantelo has remarked that guinea-birds require food at an 

 earlier period after they are hatched than any other sort of chick, 

 and that they and ducklings eat most meat, turkey-poultry 

 least. 



Wet is injurious to all chickens (the duck-tribe excepted) ; and 

 when the hen, from being confined, cannot lead her brood astray, 

 they_ will, of themselves, return to her coop on finding the grass too 

 damp. 



Mr. Cantelo is strongly of opinion, that all diseases to which 

 infant birds are liable are contagious. He advises, in consequence, 

 that the moment any one of the brood is attacked with diarrhoea, 

 sore eyes, or sneezing, it be instantly separated from the others. 



He considers all chickens safe from ordinary diseases on their 

 gaining their pen-feathers. 



He has found that nest eggs, not sat on for twelve hours, do not 

 lose their vitality. This shows that eggs taken by mowers should 

 not be hastily thrown away, in consequence of a considerable delay 

 unavoidably occurring before they can be placed under a hen to 

 complete their hatching. 



Pheasants sit about five days longer than common fowls. 



Mr. Cantelo recommends that eggs sent from a distance be packed 

 in oats. He had succeeded in hatching some he had kept, as an 

 experiment, upwards of two months in a temperate atmosphere, 

 turning them daily. This continued vitality is, however, seldom a 

 consideration as regards pheasants ; for the earlier in the season the 

 birds can be produced the better. It is a great advantage to have 

 five months' growth and feed in them by the first of October. 



* Principally Indian corn-meal. full-grown birds of a large species, 

 When the chickens are older, it is given whole, 

 the grain is merely bruised. To 



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