INCUBA′TION (Artificial)

The hatching of eggs by artificial heat. This has been practised by the Egyptians from a very remote period. M. Bonne main has the honour of having introduced this art to Western Europe, in 1775, and having been the first to pursue it succe fully on the commercial scale. The source of heat employed by him was a circulatory hot-water apparatus, and the temperature maintained by it 100° Fahr. His plan was to introduce, daily, 1-20th only of the eggs the apparatus was capable of receiving, so that on the 21st day the first chickens were hatched, and a like number every day afterwards as long as the supply of eggs was kept up. Among the trays containing the eggs he placed saucers of water, to compensate for the absence of moisture derived in natural incubation by transpiration from the body of the hen. The chickens, as soon as hatched, were transferred to a ‘nursery’ or ‘chick-room,’ also artificially heated, and were fed with crushed millet seed. Several attempts have been made of late years to introduce artificial incubation into this country, with variable succe .