INCTJBA.TIOK. 87 



the French aeouveurs do. They only provide brooda, but do not 

 rear them, selling their chickens at twenty-four hours old, and 

 sending them to ihefermiere who has ordered them packed up 

 warmly in flannel in a small flat basket. Chickens, curiously 

 enough, travel very well at that early age, better even than when 

 they are older, because Nature provides them with nourishment 

 when they first hatch out, and they really need nothing till the 

 next day but to be kept snug and warm. When they reach their 

 destination, which must, of course, be within reasonable distance, 

 they are given at night to a hen who has a brood of chickens of 

 about the same age, who will, as a rule, welcome the addition 

 to het family with pleasure, seeming rather to delight in this 

 mysterious increase to her family. A hen is always very proud 

 of a large brood, and I have often noticed will apparently, in hen 

 language, crow over a less fortunate mother with only a few to 

 take care of. 



I once had a hen who had only one chick. She got shut away 

 from her nest by accident, and was kept out so long ' that the 

 eggs were spoiled all but three, and from these were hatched 

 very weakly chicks. Two died in the act of being liberated 

 from their shells, and the result of the sitting of thirteen eggs 

 was one chick, and that took a considerable amount of cosseting 

 and nursing before it became quite strong. It was most absurd 

 to see the mother, the fuss she made over her one bantling; It 

 was a late sitting, and I had no other chicks ready to enlarge 

 her family. When the chick was a few days old; her favorite 

 mode pf carrying it was on her liaok, and there the little creature 

 sat quite contentedly while the hen marched about. This went 

 on for months, until really the single scion of the house of ' "Eaoa' ' 

 was as strong as his mother. But the affection between the two 

 was too funny. Even when he was a fine handsome Cockerel, 

 aljout to be promoted to reign in the room of his father "Raca" 

 asRaca II., or over another harem, his mother would insist on 



