Cuar.V.] ARTIFICIAL DUCK HATCHING. 81 
could ascertain by some observations which I made 
with a thermometer, from 95° to 102°, but the 
Chinamen regulate the heat by their own feelings, 
and therefore it will of course vary considerably. 
In four or five days after the eggs have been 
subject to this temperature, they are taken care- 
fully out, one by one, to a door, in which a number 
of holes have been bored nearly the size of the 
eggs; they are then held against these holes, and 
the Chinamen look through them, and are able 
to tell whether they are good or not. If good, 
they are taken back, and replaced in their former 
quarters ; if bad, they are of course excluded. In 
nine or ten days after this, that is, about fourteen 
days from the commencement, the eggs are taken 
from the baskets, and spread out on the shelves. 
Here no fire-heat is applied, but they are covered 
over with cotton, and a kind of blanket, under which 
they remain about fourteen days more, when the 
young ducks burst their shells, and the shed teems 
with life. These shelves are large, and capable of 
holding many thousands of eggs; and when the 
hatching takes place, the sight is not a little curious. 
The natives who rear the young ducks in the sur- 
rounding country know exactly the day when they 
will be ready for removal, and in two days after the 
shell is burst, the whole of the little creatures are 
sold, and conveyed to their new quarters. 
