126 THE GALL OF THE HEN. 



there are occasionally hens whose formation is such that no 

 known method will tell you whether she is a laying hen or not. 

 I give in the last chapter my original "System" and the later 

 supplement, which caused a great many questions to be asked, 

 which I trust have been satisfactorily answered in this book. 

 I was at a place in San Francisco lately where this subject 

 was brought up. There was a small party present, all of whom 

 had my "System." One of the party worked in a large meat- 

 market, where they bought and dressed live poultry. He said 

 that occasionally he dressed a hen that showed no indications 

 of being a laying hen, but upon being opened an egg would be 

 found in her. I told him the hens that he had described were 

 those that laid a very few eggs and laid them only in the 

 spring. Their pelvic bones expanded only while the hen was 

 being delivered of the egg. This hen has practically but one 

 egg under process of development at a time, consequently her 

 abdomen does not have to expand to make room for only one 

 egg. Whereas the hen that lays 150 eggs per year has a num- 

 ber of eggs developing at the same time, and her abdomen ex- 

 pands in proportion to her needs. The 200-egg hen has a 

 still larger number of eggs developing and she requires more 

 room for them, hence her abdomen expands in proportion. 

 The 250-egg hen has a still larger number of eggs of all sizes 

 developing, and her abdomen expands still wider than' the 

 200-egg hen. When the hen's abdomen expands, her pelvic 

 bones, being literally a part of and continuation of her ab- 

 domen, must expand and contract with it. When she is 

 through laying for the season her abdomen contracts, and the 

 pelvic bones must come closer together, which they do, al- 

 though there are exceptions to this rule. We will take the 

 145-egg hen, for example, of the sanguine temperament. She 

 will be four fingers abdomen and 3 /Vinch pelvic bone, when 

 in normal condition, with pelvic bones of good shape. We 

 draw our hand along her breast-bone (keel) from front to 

 rear, and find her abdomen does not drop down the least 

 bit below the rear of the breast-bone. This hen we might 

 call a "normal hen." Her pelvic bones will, in all probability, 

 expand and contract in conformance with her condition of lay- 

 ing. If she is in the flush of laying, her pelvic bones may be 

 about l 3 / 4 inches apart; later in the season, when she is not 

 laying so frequently, her pelvic bones may close to about I 1 /? 



