4> RENNIE'S MONTAGU. 



again. Are the eggs, then, covered these four and 

 twenty hours to keep them warm ? Put your hand 

 upon them, and you will find them "cold as any stone." 

 Nay, more, you shall take one of these eggs, which 

 you find covered before the bird begins to sit, and 

 you shall immerse it for four and twenty hours in 

 water ; and if you put it back into the nest before 

 the bird begins to sit, you will find that she will 

 hatch it at the same time with the rest of the eggs. 



If, then, this egg will produce a bird after being 

 four and twenty hours in the water ; and if the 

 other eggs (in the case of the waterhen) containing 

 embryo chicks will produce birds after being left 

 uncovered some hours by the mother, may we not 

 venture to hazard a conjecture that the professor? 

 somehow or other, has not exactly entered into the 

 real notions of waterfowl for covering their eggs 

 with dry hay when they leave the nest, both before 

 and after they begin to sit ? 



I will here add an observation. " The Dab- 

 chick," says our professor, " covers its eggs to keep 

 them warm ; for the vicinity of the nest to moist 

 plants, or to water, would certainly prove fatal to 

 the embryo chicks, were she to leave the eggs for a 

 moment without covering them." But the wagtail 

 will build her nest within a foot of the water, and 

 yet she never covers the eggs when she leaves her 

 nest. Now, the shell of the wagtail's egg being 

 much thinner than that of the dabchick, might one 

 not be apt to infer that the egg of the wagtail 

 would suffer sooner from cold than the egg of the 

 dabchick ? 



