
FANCIERS’ 
JOURNAL 
AND 
POUT RY «Hix CHAN GH. 
Vo. I. PHILADELPHIA, 
MARCH 12, 1874. NOD EL 


SEX OF EGGS. 
In our time we have heard of many people who have 
thought that they had discovered how to produce “ sexes at 
will.’? We confess to be an unbeliever in this doctrine, and 
do not think it was ever intended that mankind should 
ever discover this secret. But during the past year we have 
had brought to our notice no less than three experiments, 
which seem to have been entirely successful in selecting eggs 
that would produce male or female as desired; and as the 
season of hatching is upon us, and the experiment can be 
It will be seen that 
in No. 1 the air-cham- 
ber is directly at the 
apex or blunt end of 
the egg; this will hatch 
a lively cockerel, of 
quick growth, and light 
plumage. 

No. 1. 
tried without labour or expense, we have decided to give the 
information to our readers, and have had the following dia- 
grams made to illustrate the subject more plainly. 
K. B. Edwards says in his pamphlet, which we reprinted 
some time ago, ‘‘ Select only eggs pointed at the ends, avoid- 
ing any that have a tendency to roundness of form ; also 
examine the position of the air cavities in the eggs, and only 
retain those that have them placed directly at the apex of 
This is the kind re- 
jected by all the experi- 
menters so far, as it 
‘€ will be good for noth- 
ing but the pot.” 
the blunt or large end, avoiding all that have them placed 
at all to the side. In this way eight eggs out of ten will 
Mr. Pyle says this 
will hatch a pullet of 
quick, healthy growth, 
and good laying quali- 
ties. 
No. 3. 
produce cockerels.’’? The following is from a correspondent 
of the London Journal of Horticulture: 
‘‘One of your correspondents revives the old question 
about the sex of eggs; I send you my experience. Last 
winter an old country poultry-keeper told me he could dis- 
This will also hatch 
a pullet, but of slow 
growth, a poor layer, 
inclined to be mascu- 
line, and will sometimes 
crow. 

No. 4. 
tinguish the sex in eggs; I laughed at him, and was none 
the less sceptical when he told me the following secret: 
‘Eggs with the air-bladder on the centre of the crown of the 
egg will produce cockerels, those with the bladder on one 
side will produce pullets.’ The old man was so certain of 
the truth of this dogma, and his poultry-yard so far con- 
firmed it, that I determined to make experiments upon it 
this year. I have done so, carefully registering every egg 
‘bladder vertical’ or ‘bladder on one side,’ rejecting every 
1 one in which it was not decidedly one or the other, as in 
The follow- 

some it is only very slightly out of the centre. 
