192 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I9II. 



laid on the Station plant only one and a quarter eggs which it 

 was not possible to credit to the individual bird. This prob- 

 ably represents something approaching the irreducible minimum 

 of error in trapnesting work on any large scale. The reason 

 that it is believed to be substantially irreducible is that further 

 to increase the proportion of recorded eggs would involve the 

 intelligent cooperation of the hen, a factor not easily controlled. 

 In this I 1-4 percent of unrecorded eggs only a very small frac- 

 tion (less than one percent) is chargeable to instrumental 

 errors. It is probably safe to say that no trapnest (or other 

 piece of machinery) can ever be devised which will effectively 

 meet all situations which will arise. In a very few instances, 

 amounting as has been said to less than one percent of the unre- 

 corded (not the total) egg production, two hens will go pre- 

 cisely together into the trapnest, or one wall sit on the door 

 while another walks in, lays, and walks out again. The new 

 Maine Station nest has, however, reduced the instrumental 

 error practically to nothing. 



With no instrumental error, however, there remains some 

 unrecorded egg production. This arises in the main from the 

 following factors : 



1. Laying on the ftoor of the house. This may be due to 



(a) Instinct to "steal a nest." This can be cured if 



taken in hand early. 



(b) Purely physiological inability to hold up the tgg 



longer. This may happen when all the trap 

 nests are full and a hen wanting to lay cannot 

 get in, or it may happen when an attendant 

 throws out of the nest a bird which has been 

 on the nest for some time, has not yet laid, 

 but is just on the point of doing so. These 

 are purely accidental matters and cannot be 

 entirely controlled though with care they may 

 be largely so, 



(c) Lack of familiarity with nests. Common in 



young pullets, which have to be "taught" by 

 direct methods to use nests. 



2. Laying in "broody coops." This has already been dis- 



cussed. 



