BOOK VIII. XI. 9-12 



produce their eggs outside the enclosure. Above all 

 during the seasons in which they lay, the peacock- 

 house must be piled high with more straw, the better 

 to ensure that the eggs are delivered intact. For 

 usually peahens, having come to seek rest at night, 

 lay their eggs while they are roosting on the perches, 

 which have already been described, and when the 

 eggs have fallen from a lesser height and more softly, 

 they keep their soundness unimpaired. Every day, 

 therefore, during the period of laying you will have 

 to go carefully round the peacock-houses in the early 

 morning and collect the eggs which are lying about, 

 and the fresher they are when they are set under the 

 hen, the better are the prospects of a good hatch, 

 and that this should be done is very much to the house- 

 holder's advantage. For peahens which do not sit 10 

 generally produce three lots of eggs during the year, 

 but those which sit spend the whole period of their 

 productivity in either hatching or even rearing their 

 young. The first laying generally consists of five 

 eggs, the second of four, and the third of either three 

 or two. There is no reason for making the mistake 11 

 of letting Rhodian hens incubate peahens' eggs, 

 since they do not even bring up their own offspring 

 properly ; but the biggest veteran farmyard-fowls of 

 our native breed should be chosen and should be put 

 to sit upon nine eggs, five of which should be pea- 

 hen's and the rest ordinary hen's eggs, nine days 

 after the moon's first increase. Then on the tenth 12 

 day all the hen's eggs should be removed and the 

 same number of fresh eggs of the same kind sub- 

 stituted, that they may be hatched out with the 

 peahen's eggs on the thirtieth day which is about 

 new moon. But it must not escape the keeper's 



381 



