That human beings or other animals could not exist with such
differences in the chemical composition of the body, is at once
apparent. In fact I do not believe that the chick can live under
such remarkable circumstances. As I have picked the extreme cases in
the series given, it is possible that these extremes were
experimental errors, and as in the Utah data, no information is
given as what happened to the chicks, I have no proof that they did
live. But from the large number of hatches that were recorded below
9 per cent, and above 15 per cent., giving a variation of the actual
water content in the chick's body of about 10 per cent., it is
evident that chicks do hatch under remarkable physiological
difficulties. One explanation that suggests itself is, that as there
is considerable variation in evaporation of individual eggs due to
the amount of shell porosity, and the chicks that hatch in either
case may be the ones whose individual variations threw them nearer
the normal.
By a further study from the Ontario data of the relation of the
evaporation to the results in livable chicks, it can be readily
observed that all good hatches have evaporation centering around the
12 per cent. moisture loss, and that all lots with evaporations
above 15 per cent. hatch out extremely poor.
The general averages of the machines supplied with some form of
moisture was 35 per cent. of all eggs set, in chicks alive at four
weeks of age, while the machines ran dry gave only 20 per cent. of
live chicks at a similar period.
Now, I wish to call attention to a further point in connection with
evaporation. If the final measure of the loss of weight by
evaporation were the only criterion of correct conditions of
moisture in the chick's body, the hatches that show 12 per cent., or
whatever the correct amount of evaporation may be, should be
decidedly superior to those on either side. That they are better,
has already been shown. But they are far from what they should be.
An explanation is not hard to find. The correct content of moisture
is not the only essential to the chick's well being at the moments
of hatching, but during the whole period of incubation. Under our
present system of incubation, the chick is immediately subject to
the changing evaporation of American weather conditions. The data
for that fact, picked at random, will be of interest. The following
table gives the vapor pressure at Buffalo, N. Y., for twenty
consecutive days in April:
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