90 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. VI. 
a good hen must be prepared. The date must be clearly 
written upon the shells of the eggs laid, and they will 
hatch in twenty-five days. When hatched take the 
young and put them upon cotton spread upon some 
warm water, and feed them with eels' blood for five 
days. After five days they can be fed with eels' flesh 
chopped fine, and great care must be taken in watching 
them. 
" When fishing, a straw tie must be put upon their 
necks, to prevent them from swallowing the fish when 
they catch them. In the eighth or ninth month of the 
year they will daily descend into the water at ten o'clock 
in the morning, and catch fish until five in the afternoon, 
when they will come on shore. They will continue to 
go on in this way until the third month, after which time 
they cannot fish until the eighth month comes round again. 
The male is easily known from the female, in being 
generally a larger bird, and in having a darker and more 
glossy feather, but more particularly in the size of the 
head, the head of the male being large, and that of the 
female small." 
Such are the habits of this extraordinary bird. As 
the months named in the note just quoted refer to the 
Chinese calendar, it follows that these birds do not fish 
in the summer months, but commence in autumn, about 
October, and end about May — periods agreeing nearly 
with the eighth and third months of the Chinese year. 
