LAYING AND HATCHING. 69 



eggs containing living chickens will be perfectly opaque, permitting no light 

 whatever to he seen through them except at the larger end where the air-vesicle 

 exists ; and this transparent air chamber and the opaque dark part of the egg 

 containing the chick arQ separated by a well marked line. 



It is evident that setting two or more hens on the same day is advantageous, 

 as the "clear" eggs may be removed from the whole of the nests, and the number 

 in those that are deficient made up from any one of the nests, a fresh batch being 

 placed under the hen whose eggs have been removed. 



The conveyance of eggs for the purpose of hatching is tolerably well 

 understood by the most experienced breeders. There is nothing equal to a good- 

 sized basket in which they can be placed, surrounded with and separated from 

 one another by hay. Boxes, with bran, sawdust, cut chaff, &c., are very inferior, 

 as these materials shake into smaller compass by the jolting of the journey, and 

 the eggs frequently come into contact and are broken. 



Sometimes circumstances may occur in which it is desirable to exchange the 

 eggs of fowls and pheasants temporarily, and that there is no difficulty in so doing 

 is proved by the following example : — " A keeper has for the last two years 

 constantly removed pheasants' and partridges' eggs from their nests, and substituted 

 either addled eggs of the same kind, which is best, or fresh hens' eggs. The 

 exchanged eggs he places under common hens who act as incubators, and are made 

 to sit sometimes on two successive lots. As soon as the pheasants' eggs show 

 appearance of. being beaked or hatching, they are removed back again to those 

 nests which have not been forsaken, and with very good results, as the following 

 wUl show. Last month in a piece of barley, three pheasants' nests were found 

 by some men who were hoeing in the ground, and it was thought advisable by the 

 keeper to exchange the eggs, fearing they might be stolen ; a few hens' eggs were 

 substituted in each nest, to which the hen pheasants returned. As soon as the 

 keeper from his sitting hens could obtain a sufficient number of almost hatched 

 eggs, he made the exchange again, placing in each nest twenty eggs; the three 

 broods which actually went off were fifty-nine young pheasants. The exchange is 

 much more likely to succeed with pheasants than partridges ; with the former it is 

 almost a certainty. The advantages are many, and aU on the keeper's side, as he 

 may turn out with the. old birds a larger brood than they originally would have 

 hatched. Nests disturbed, or those near paths, can be experimented upon; should 

 the birds forsake, or the nest be robbed, you are on the right side. The common 

 hens are sometimes kept sitting on two or three lots of eggs, which must constantly 

 be examined to see if they are near hatching." 



In those cases in which the nest of the pheasant is in a situation likely to 

 be disturbed, the plan recommended is certainly advantageous ; but, under ordinary 

 circumstances, the eggs had better be left unmolested, as the hen pheasant is almost 



