THE SHORT-FACED TUMBLED. 121 



if they are at a loss to find them. By attending to these rules, the birds will 

 soon become steady and settled. Particular care should also be taken always to 

 give the cock the same habitation he had last year ; if not, he will get master of 

 two pens, and occasion the difficulty just mentioned. The same care is not 

 necessary with regard to the hens : they will always follow their cocks, when 

 thoroughly matched. 



"In a week from pairing or matching, some of the hens will be near laying, 

 which will be plainly discovered by the anxiety of the cock in continually driving 

 his hen from place to place, till she goes on the nest ; and the nearer she is to 

 laying, the greater is his anxiety. It is also discernible by the hen's sitting on a 

 heap, with her feathers set up, as if she was cold and unwell, and by a great 

 protuberance on the rump, and a depression or hanging of the tail. When these 

 symptoms are perceived, care should be taken to make them a good nest of soft 

 straw, well rubbed with the hands (for they seldom make a proper one themselves). 

 If the cock should be very impetuous in driving his hen, the best way will be to 

 pen them till she has laid her first egg, or she may probably drop it on the floor, 

 from the constant worrying she sustains by the cock's driving her. They may be 

 let out again when she has laid it, to stretch then- wings, and penned up again on 

 the third day, when she will lay her second egg. They sometimes drop them the 

 day before the proper day for laying, and then they are without shell, and what are 

 called lush eggs. So that if the cock is too violent, it may be as well to keep 

 them penned up till the hen has safely deposited both her eggs. This should 

 also be done with all weakly hens, who are much more likely to drop their eggs 

 about the loft than lay them in the places provided for them. 



" The hen mostly lays two eggs, missing one day between the first and second. 

 Sometimes, though rarely, she will lay three ; at others only one. When she lays 

 but one, I think it is a sign of weakness or great delicacy ; but this seldom 

 happens except in the spring, in the first or second round. After having laid her 

 first egg, which is invariably between five and six o'clock in the afternoon, she and 

 the cock alternately stand over it till the second is laid, which is usually at one 

 o'clock or soon after, on the third day, when they commence incubation in the 

 following manner : as soon as the second egg is laid, the cock, who is generally 

 at hand waiting the event, sends the hen off, both for the purpose of recruiting 

 herself after the pain and fatigue of laying, and to take the proper refreshment 

 necessary to enable her to resume her sitting for the night, which she does 

 between four and five the same afternoon, and sits till about ten o'clock the 

 next day, when the cock relieves guard, and sits again till four in the after- 

 noon, and so alternately till the seventeenth day from the laying the last 

 egg, when the incubation is complete, and the eggs will be chipped, and in 

 general hatched in the course of that day, if they hatch at all ; and this 

 regularity, and alternate relief, is maintained during the feeding as well as the 

 sitting. 



" It is also very common for them in the spring to lay thin-shelled eggs, which 



M 



