Besides, if you do not, hens that have been sitting but a day or two may be placed upon eggs just ready to hatch when she will not take kindly to the young birds as they hatch, and a great mortality is sure to follow. If you should be running 100 sitters, the more you can take off at a time the sooner you will get through. Have a sponge and warm water handy as you will have more or less broken eggs. The rest should be washed clean at once and returned to the nest. When hatching out be sure and remove the little ducklings, as fast as they come out, to a warm place to dry off, as owing to their long necks and peculiar shape the mother hen will unconsciously crush many more of them than she would of chicks. In fact, they should never see the hen after being taken away, as they can be grown to much better advantage, and with far less mortality, in brooders. And just here is the great economy of setting six or eight hens at the same time; the young ducklings can be all put together in one brooder and cared for with less trouble and with less mortality than that resulting from one hen with her brood. The ducklings should be confined in yards, the same care and feed given them as already recommended for artificially hatched birds. Allusion has already been made to the proverbial timidity of the Pekin duck. This sometimes causes trouble to the grower when the birds are confined together in large numbers. When six or eight weeks old, and even after they are full grown, they often get frightened, or gallied as it were, in dark nights. Being unable to see, one bird will touch another, he will spring away and come in contact with several more. In an instant the whole are in the most violent commotion, whirling and treading each other down. It will be a perfect stampede and will sometimes be kept up the entire night. After a night of such dissipation many of the birds will appear completely jaded out, and some of them unable to rise. Of course, this must be stopped at once or the grower may bid farewell to all fattening or laying on the part of the birds. Hanging lanterns in the yards at stated distances will usually restore order. It will not be needed when there is a moon. See that there are no sharp projections in either yards or breeding-pens, as both old and young birds are often lamed for life by simply coming in contact with them in the night. Too much care cannot be exercised on this point, as the bones of the birds are so small and their bodies so frail. As has been intimated before, ducks are not subject to so many diseases as hens,--while they are entirely free from lice or body parasites of any kind. Indeed, I never saw a louse on a duck in all my experience. Still, it cannot be denied that good sanitary conditions, together with plenty of pure air and water, will not only greatly increase the egg-production, but facilitate the growth and improve the properties of the duckling.