Artificial ’Egg-hatching . 227 
distinguished from the good by holding them in front of 
a lamp. The oven was shut up for ten days longer, at the 
end of which time the eggs were “ disclosed,” or hatched 
simultaneously. A similar method of hatching eggs was 
employed in China, about the same date. 
Sir John Mandeville relates that in China he found 
hens without feathers, but with white wool like sheep. 
Whether the worthy knight was indulging in romance, or 
whether he mistook the furry appearance of the Cochin 
China fowl for wool, is uncertain. 
According to Mr. Bennett (Gardens of the Zoological 
Society, 1830), much uncertainty prevails as to 
the date of the introduction of the Turkey Tulkey - 
into England. This author writes:— 
“ It is a singular fact that the origin of this, the most important 
addition to our domestic poultry that has been made in modern times, 
should have been involved in such obscurity, as to remain for more 
than two centuries out of the three that the bird has been known to 
us, doubtful and undetermined. ... In 1541 we find it mentioned in 
a Constitution of Archbishop Cranmer, published in Leland’s Collec¬ 
tanea , by which it was ordered that of such large fowls as cranes, 
swans, and turkey-cocks, there should be but one in a dish. In 1566 a 
present of twelve turkeys was thought not unworthy of being offered 
by the municipality of Amiens to the king; at whose marriage, in 
1570, it is said, they were first eaten in France.” 
Dairies Barrington, in bis amusing Miscellanies, 1781, 
tells us that “ four young turkies, and consequently bred 
in England, were dressed at a serjeant’s feast in 1555,” 
and claims to find a still earlier mention of this fowl in 
the statement that— 
“ capons of grease (Greece, probably) made part of an entertainment in 
the sixth year of Edward IV., 1467; it being highly probable that 
this bird was common to two countries lying so near to each other as 
Greece and Asia Minor. Turkies had so increased in England that 
Caius, in his account of our rarer animals, printed in 1570, omits men¬ 
tion of them, though he is very particular in the description of a 
guinea hen, stiling it meleagris .” 
