ORDER GALLINiE. 215 



spread, that the chickens pass the day. They are watched 

 there, to preserve them from kites, and are fed with pounded 

 millet and rice. 



On the approach of night, they are shut up in cages, made 

 of branches of the palm-tree, and furnished internally with 

 thick cloth, and they are taken into the apartments of the 

 house. One month is sufficient to fit them to be united with 

 the fowl in the poultry yards. 



M. Parmentier is not at all inclined to allow any thing for 

 the influence of the climate of Egypt in the success of these 

 operations. But we really think that much more is attri- 

 butable to it than he will admit. We will concede, if he 

 pleases, that the business of artificial incubation may be car- 

 ried on as well in Europe, and is totally uninfluenced by ex- 

 ternal temperature ; a fact, however, which is very far from 

 being demonstrated. However, we will concede it ; but we 

 may be permitted to ask, whether the agency of climate goes 

 for nothing in the education of the young .'' That it does 

 not, appears evident from his own details, respecting the ex- 

 traordinary degree of care and attention obliged to be adopted 

 in this particular in France, with the chickens which have 

 been artificially hatched. To preserve them in existence, 

 they must be kept in the most close and tender manner, and 

 accustomed, by the most insensible degrees, to the impression 

 of the external atmosphere. The air which they respire is 

 factitious ; the climate which they inhabit is the creation of 

 man, and, like all the rest of his creations, very inadequate 

 substitutes for the genial operations of nature. This tender 

 mode of education must render the majority of these young 

 birds feeble and unhealthy. One month, as we have seen, 

 suffices, in Egypt, to qualify the artificially hatched chickens 

 to mingle with the rest of the domestic poultry and provide 

 for themselves. In France, more than three months must 



