BOOK VIII. V. 9-11 



neighbourhood of towns, where chickens are sold at a 

 high price straight from their mother's care, summer 

 rearing is to be approved. 



When eggs are being put under a hen, care should 

 always be taken that this is done when the moon is 

 increasing, namely, from the tenth to the fifteenth 

 day of the month ; for the actual placing of the eggs 

 is most convenient somewhere about this time, and it 

 is necessary to arrange that the moon is increasing 

 again when the chickens are hatched. It takes 10 

 twenty-one days for the eggs to become quickened 

 and take on the form of birds in the case of farm-yard 

 poultry, but for peacocks and geese rather more than 

 twenty-seven days are required. If ever it should 

 be necessary to put the eggs of the two latter species 

 under ordinary hens, we shall allow them to sit first 

 for ten days on the eggs of these alien birds, and then 

 they will be given four eggs of their own kind to sit 

 upon, and never more than five. These must be as 

 large as possible ; for from undersized eggs only very 

 small birds are produced. Next, when anyone wishes 11 

 as many male chickens as possible to be hatched, he 

 will set the longest and most pointed eggs ; if, on the 

 other hand, he wants female chickens, he should set 

 the roundest eggs. The following is the usual 

 method of placing eggs as handed down by those 

 who are most scrupulous in the way they manage 

 such matters. First of all they choose the most retired 

 nesting-boxes, so that the brooding hens may not be 

 disturbed by other fowls ; then, before they strew 

 anything in them, they cleanse them carefully and 

 purify the chaff which they are going to put under 

 the hens with sulphur and bitumen and a burning 

 torch, and when they have thus purged it they throw 



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