35 



thence they proceed to billing, in which action the hen will put her beak 

 into the cock's, who seems to feed her, after this she will squat and readily 

 receive his tread. 



50. — Your hen by this means being rendered prolific, they will seek 

 out a nest, or convenient place, for the repository of their eggs, into 

 which they will carry straw, frail, feathers, and such other materials, as 

 they find proper to form a warm and soft reception for the egg, neither 

 party being at this time idle, though some are more industrious than 

 others, on this account, who will lay their eggs almost on the bare 

 boards. 



51. — When a hen is nigh the time of her laying, her mate will pursue 

 her from place to place, not suffering her to be quiet in any place but her 

 nest, out of a peculiar instinct, I suppose, fearing his offspring should be 

 lost, by her dropping her egg in some place improper for incubation. And 

 here you must observe that some cocks are so very hot, that they wont, at 

 such a time, suffer a hen almost to eat, this will render her very weak, 

 and often make her lay a thin-shelled or imperfect egg ; to prevent this 

 inconvenience, the best way is to take the cock from her, till the egg 

 become to a greater perfection in the uterus. 



52. — Pigeons though they will make a great increase in a year, yet it 

 is not from the number of eggs they lay at one time, for they lay but two, 

 and then immediately proceed to incubation, but from the frequency of the 

 repeated hatchings, which generally happen once in five or six weeks, ac- 

 cording as they are good or bad breeders. 



53. — When a Pigeon has laid her first egg, she rests one day between, 

 and on the succeeding day lays her second ; they generally stand over the 

 first egg, which, if you please, you may call an improper incubation, till 

 the next is laid, and then sit close, that both young ones may be hatched 

 at once, or pretty nearly ; though some will sit close on the first, and by 

 that means hatch one young one two days before the other. 



54. — The time of a Pigeon's incubation, which trouble is equally 

 divided between the cock and hen, except that the hen always sits at 

 night, is nineteen or twenty days from the first egg, and seventeen or 

 eighteen from the last, at which time you ought to observe whether the 

 eggs are hatched or not, for two special reasons : 



55. — First — Because your young ones, for want of due heat, which 

 often happens if the old do not sit close, may want strength to extricate 

 themselves out of the shell, and so die in it for want of air and proper sus- 

 tenance ; for the nutriment they received from the internal part of the egg 

 is by this time exhausted ; whenever therefore an affair of this nature 

 happens, if the egg be chipped or cracked with the force of the young one, 

 break the shell all round with your nail, or the head of a pin, and you 

 will find your account in it. 



56. — Secondly — If your Pigeons do not hatch, because their eggs are 



53 to 58.— See J. M. Eaton's Almond Tumbler, paragraphs 439 to 441. 

 53.— See J. Eaton's Almond Tumbler, paragraphs 516 to 523. 

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