resist sending their eighteen or twenty pound "stag market, while a young cock of the year, they think, will answer every purpose next spring as well. Some even deem it an extravagance to keep a Turkey-cock at all, if they have not more than two hens, which they would send on a visit of a day or two to a neighbour who has a male bird. A case is recorded in which such a visit, made in the July or August of one year, was available for the eggs of the succeeding April. The time when the hens require this change of air in spring, may be known by their lying down on the ground, as if they were unwell; doing so immediately again, if taken up and made to walk on, which apparent languor is accompanied by a lack-a-daisical love-sick expression of countenance. Last Christmas we ate or gave away all our Turkeys (including a magnificent stag, whose image haunts us still), except one hen. The above-mentioned plan was necessarily adopted; and the result was, from eleven eggs, eight chicks so strong as almost to rear themselves. The same system has been occasionally tried with Fowls, and has been found not to answer.

When the hen has once selected a spot for her nest, she will continue to lay there till the time of incubation, so that the eggs may be brought home from day to day, there being no need of a nest egg, as with the common Fowl. She will lay from fifteen to twenty eggs, more or less. If there are any dead leaves or dry grass at hand, she will cover her eggs with these; but if not, she will take no trouble to collect them from a distance. Her determination to sit will be known by her constantly remaining on the nest, though empty; and as it is seldom in a position sufficiently secure against the weather or pilferers, a nest should be prepared for her by placing some straw, with her eggs, on the floor of a convenient outhouse. She should then be brought home

* In Norfolk, turkey-cocks are called stags from their second year upwards.

and gently and kindly placed upon it. It is a most pleasing sight to witness the satisfaction with which the bird takes to her long-lost eggs, turning them about, placing them with her bill in the most suitable positions, packing the straw tightly around and under them, and finally sinking upon them with the quiet joy of anticipated maternity.

In the south of England from fifteen to twenty eggs may be allowed; but with the Norfolk variety, which is the smallest, and in a northern or eastern county, it is found that moderation succeeds better than over-greediness of chicks. In this case thirteen eggs are enough to give her; a large hen might cover more; but a few strong, well-hatched chicks are better than a large brood of weaklings that have been delayed in the shell, perhaps twelve hours over the time, from insufficient warmth. At the end of a week it is usual to add two or three Fowls' eggs, "to teach the young Turkeys to peck." The plan is not a bad one; the activity of the chickens does stir up some emulation in their larger brethren; the eggs take but little room in the nest; and at the end of the summer you have two or three very fine Fowls, all the plumper for the extra diet they have shared with the little Turkeys.

Some ladies believe it necessary to turn the eggs once a day; but the hen does that herself many times a day. If the eggs are marked, and you notice their position when she leaves the nest, you will never find them arranged in the same order. A person who obtained ninety-nine chicks from a hundred eggs, took the great trouble to turn every egg every day with her own hand, during the whole time of incubation. The result appears favourable; but, in fact, only amounts to this, that such officiousness did no harm with such a good, patient, quiet creature as the sitting Turkey is, but it would probably have worried and annoyed any other bird into addling her whole clutch. We will at once reject, as utterly absurd and unnatural, all directions to immerse or "try" the eggs in a pail of water, hot or cold.

In four weeks the little birds will be hatched; and then, how are they to be reared? Some books tell you to plunge them in cold water, to strengthen them: those that survive will certainly be hardy birds.* Others say, "Make them swallow a whole pepper-corn ;" which is as if we were to cram a London pippin down the throat of a new-born babe. Others, again, say, "Give them a little ale, beer, or wine." We know, unhappily, that some mothers are wicked enough to give their infants gin, and we know the consequences. Not a few advise that they be taken away, and kept in a basket by the fire-side, wrapped in flannel, for eight or ten hours. Why take them away from her? She has undergone no loss, or pain, or labour: she wants no rest, having had too much of that already. All she requires is the permission to indulge undisturbed the natural exercise of her own affectionate instinct.

Give them nothing; do nothing to them: let them be in the nest under the shelter of their mother's wings at least eight or ten hours; if hatched in the afternoon, till the following morning. Then place her on the grass, in the sun, under a roomy coop. If the weather be fine

We

* Sir J. S. Sebright exposes the folly of endeavouring to make young creatures robust by undue exposure to cold and hardship, an experiment which some men and women are cruel enough to try upon their own offspring. Air and exercise increase the strength of any growing animal, but cold and hunger only dwarf and weaken. see robust children in extremely poor families, not because they are poor, but because if they were not robust, they would not be alive at all. Sir John, in his "Treatise on Improving the Breeds of Domestic Animals," pp. 15, 16, says,-" In cold and barren countries no animals can live to the age of maturity but those that have strong constitutions the weak and the unhealthy do not live to propagate their infirmities, as is too often the case with our domestic animals. To this I attribute the peculiar hardiness of the horses, cattle, and sheep, bred in mountainous countries, more than to their having been inured to the severity of the climate; for our domestic animals do not become more hardy by being exposed, when young, to cold and hunger; animals so treated will not, when arrived at the age of maturity, endure so much hardship as those who have been better kept in their infant state."

she may be stationed where you choose, by a long piece of flannel list tied round one leg, and fastened to a stump or a stone. But the boarded coop saves her ever-watchful anxiety from the dread of enemies above and behindthe carrion-crow, the hawk, the rat, the weasel; and also protects herself-she will protect her young-from the sudden showers of summer. Offer at first a few crumbs of bread the little ones, for some hours, will be in no hurry to eat; but when they do begin, supply them constantly and abundantly with chopped egg, shreds of meat and fat, curd, boiled rice mixed with cress, lettuce, and the green of onions. Melted mutton-suet poured over barley-meal, and cut up when cold; also bullock's liver boiled and minced, are excellent things. Barleymeal, mixed thick and stiff with water or milk, nettletops, leeks, goose-grass, or cleavers, and many other things, might be added to the list; but it is probable that a few of these may now and then be refused by some fanciful little rogues. I think I have observed that little

Turkies do not like their food to be minced much smaller than they can swallow it; indolently preferring to make a meal at three or four mouthfuls to troubling themselves with the incessant pecking and scratching in which chickens so much delight. But at any rate, the quantity consumed costs nothing; the attention to supply it is everything.

The young of the Turkey afford a remarkable instance of hereditary and transmitted habits. From having been tended for many generations with so much care, they appear naturally to expect it almost as soon as they are released from the shell. We are told that young pointers, the descendants of well-educated dogs, will point at the scent of game without any previous training; and so Turkey-chicks seem to wait for the attention of Man before they can have any experience of the value or nature of those attentions. Food which they would refuse from a platter, they will peck greedily from the palm of a hand; a crumb which would be disdained if

seen accidentally on the ground, will be relished from the tip of a finger. The proverb that "the master's eye fattens the horse," is applicable to them, not in a metaphorical, but in a literal sense; for they certainly take their food with a better appetite if their keeper stays to distribute it, and see them eat it, than if he merely set it down and left them to help themselves.

I believe this to be the case with more domesticated animals than we are aware of, and appears natural enough if we remember how much more we enjoy a meal in the society of those we love and respect, than if we partook of it in indifferent or disagreeable company.

However, there can be no doubt that young Turkeys pampered and spoiled for about three hundred generations, have at length acquired an innate disposition to rely on the care of Man. Sir Humphry Davy, in his "Salmonia," believes that a like hereditary instinct is engendered even in fishes, believing that the trout, &c., in unfrequented rivers, are more unsuspicious of artificial flies than those in the streams of Great Britain. "This," he says, " may be fancy, yet I have referred it to a kind of hereditary disposition, which has been formed and transmitted from their progenitors.

"Physicus. However strange it may appear, I can believe this. When the early voyagers discovered new islands, the birds upon them were quite tame, and easily killed by sticks and stones, being fearless of Man; but they soon learned to know their enemy, and this newly acquired sagacity was possessed by their offspring, who had never seen a man. Wild and domesticated Ducks are, in fact, from the same original type; it is only necessary to compare them, when hatched together under a hen, to be convinced of the principle of hereditary transmission of habits-the Wild young ones instantly fly from Man, the Tame ones are indifferent to his presence.*

.*

* The young of rabbits, wild and tame, show this contrast more strongly than any creatures with which I am acquainted.