from confinement. After the hen has set a week, the fertility of the eggs may be satisfactorily ascertained by taking a thin board with a small orifice in it, placing a candle at the back, and holding up each egg to the points of light. The barren eggs may then be removed, and used, hard-boiled, for young chickens. Some reserve this for the eleventh or twelfth day. About the _twenty-first day_, the chicken is excluded from the _egg_; for the purpose of breaking the shell of which it is furnished with a horny-pointed scale, greatly harder than the bill itself, at the upper tip of the bill--a scale which falls off, or becomes absorbed, after the chicken is two or three days old. The chicken is rolled up in the egg in the form of a ball, with its forepart toward the highest end, and its beak uppermost, the hard scale nearly touching the shell. The first few strokes of the chicken's beak produce a small crack, rather nearer the larger than the smaller end of the egg, and the egg is said to be _chipped_. From the first crack, the chicken turns gradually round, from left to right, chipping the shell as it turns, in a circular manner, never obliquely. All do not succeed in producing the result in the same time; some being able to complete the work within an hour, and others taking two or three hours, while half a day is most usually employed, and some require twenty-four hours or more, but rarely two days. Some have greater obstacles to overcome than others, all shells not being alike in thickness and hardness. When chickens do not effect their escape easily, some little assistance is needed; but the difficulty is to know when to give it, as a rash attempt to help them, by breaking the shell, particularly in a downward direction toward the smaller end, is often followed by a loss of blood, which can ill be spared. It is better not to interfere, until it is apparent that a part of the brood have been hatched for some time, say twelve hours, and that the rest cannot succeed in making their appearance. It will then generally be found that the whole fluid contents of the egg, yolk and all, are taken up into the body of the chicken, and that weakness alone has prevented its forcing itself out. The causes of such weakness are various; sometimes, insufficient warmth, from the hen having set on too many eggs; sometimes the original feebleness of the vital spark; but, most frequently, the staleness of the eggs employed for incubation.