208 CLASS AVES. 



constructed at Amboise, and Francis the First followed his 

 example at Montrichard. 



These multiplied trials of the Egyptian method should 

 have contributed to make it generally adopted in Europe. 

 Probably they were not always sufficiently successful to excite 

 the cupidity of private persons. They were considered rather 

 as a new mode of amusement for crowned heads, than an 

 object of advantageous speculation for subjects. However, 

 as the little are always fond of aping the great, the people 

 became desirous of the amusement of hatching eggs, as well 

 as kings. Inquiries were set on foot as to the possibility of 

 doing the thing on a small scale, and at a small expense. 

 Philosophers then produced the old receipts of the Greeks, 

 and nearly at the same time the Portuguese travellers com- 

 municated the system employed in China. This consists in 

 putting into a vase, eggs, which are sunk in fine sand at the 

 thick end, covering them with a mat, and placing the vase 

 on a stove, which is fed with live coal. 



The industry and ingenuity of our Gallic neighbours soon 

 modified these operations. Olivier de Serres tells us of a 

 small portable oven, made of iron or copper, in which eggs 

 were arranged, mixed with feathers, and which was covered 

 with a very soft cushion. A continued and equal heat was 

 given to the entire stove, by means of four lamps, always 

 kept lighted. But this celebrated agriculturist remarks, that 

 this affair was more curious than useful, and that the chickens 

 which it supplied required more attention than others, that 

 they were more weak, and more subject to defluxions and to 

 colds. 



In pursuing this investigation, we come to that remarkable 

 era when philosophical travellers, on their return from Egypt, 

 brought back faithful drawings of the hatching-ovens there, 

 and descriptions of the operations which they had seen 

 employed in that covmtry. We also come to the time when 



