120 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



clutches of game eggs which have been cut out 

 of grass, and have been handed over to a fowl 

 for the completion of incubation. It is said that 

 the nests of partridges and pheasants, because 

 they are on the ground, and almost in actual 

 contact with the soil, insure a proper supply of 

 moisture to the eggs. And yet there is the same 

 perfect hatching of the eggs of French partridges 

 at the top of the driest pile of straw as on the 

 ground, and of those of the wild-duck aloft in the 

 pollarded willow, and even of the pheasant that 

 occasionally will nest in an ivy-clad tree or on 

 the top of a stump. And the thick-shelled eggs 

 of hawks on a dry nest of twigs, hatch well 

 enough, and so do wood -pigeons'. The same 

 organic changes must take place in the tissues 

 of all eggs that hatch out, irrespective of sort or 

 situation. 



In view of this, and of other facts which I have 

 observed, the peeling of eggs at hatching-time 

 scarcely can be due to the lack of external moisture. 

 I believe peeling is caused by a too prolonged 

 absence from the eggs, during the intermediate 

 period of incubation, of the temperature necessary 

 to hatch them, yet not quite long enough to destroy 

 the life of the chicks. In short, a special weakness 

 of the chicks is the cause of their not breaking the 

 shell in the usual way in the first place ; while, in 

 the second, the actual peeling of the shells is due 



