The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-07-29
The Wonders Of Incubation.

1t is wonderful to trace the develop
ment of the chicken, during the process
of incubation, from the day in which
the mother hen begins her tedious term
Of "setting" to the moment when the
downy biped bursts the shell and en-
ters on life as an animate and indie
pendent existence. In the pursuit of
learning, and in the interest of science,
no seeming destruction of material is
of any moment, and we trust no econ
omical poultry raiser will accuse us of
extravaganza if we remove each day or
oftener of the twenty one days required
for the perfection of the chicken, a sin
gle egg, and show you las far as we can
comprehend the principals Of creat;on)
how the feathered tribes of our farm
yard are maie.
OF course the germ of life is in the
egg from the beginning; as no amount
of warmth and quiet will produce a
bird from Il sterile egg; hut with this
fact assured. the hen has sat on eggs
hardly twelve hours before we find
some lineaments of the head and body
of the chicken. The heart may be seen
to beat at the second dav, and its as
pect, or shape, is that of tiny horse
shoe. Blood vessels appear at the end
of the second day and faint pulsation
is distinguishable, one being the left
ventricle and the other the rudiment of
the great artery About the fftieth
hour one auricle of the heart appears, re-
sembling a loop folded down upon it
self. At the end of seventy hours
symptoms of the wings are apparent
and on the head five bubbles are seen,
two for the incipient brain, one for the
bill and the other two for the front and
back of the head. At the end of the
fourth day the auricles, already visi
bic, approach nearer to the heart, and
the liver appears toward the fifth day.
At the end of seven hours more we see
the lungs and stomach, and, with won
derful rapidity, are dtveiopel, four
hours afterwards, the intestines, the
loins and the upper jaw. At the one
hundred and fofty-fourth hour two
ventrices are visible, and two drops of
blood instead Of the single drop which
we had seen previously. The seventh
day the brain begins to have some con-
sistency; and at the one hundred and
nineteenth hour of incubation the bill
opens and flesh appears on the breast.
Four hours after the breast bone is
seen; and in six hours after this the
ribs appear forming the back of the
chicken, and the bill is distinctly viS-
bic, as well as the gail bladder The
hundred and thrty-six hours, and if
we remove the chick from the shell it
evidently moves itself At the two
hundredth hour the eyes appear, and
lightweight hours after the ribs are
perfect. At the three hundred and
thirtyfrst the spleen draws near the
stomach and the lungs to the chest
About the fifteenth day the bill fire.
1uentiy opens ana shuts' ana careful
listener can catch the smothered cry of
the imprisoned chick at the end of the
eighteenth day
For the remaining three days it
grows continually, developing the fin
ishing touches to its various organs,
and to the sill1en covering of down
which envelopes the tiny creature from
glossy beak to slender drumstick
Strength comes with all the accelerated
forces of quickening life, and a few
strokes of the powerful bill sets the
pretty prisoner free, and his after life
and prosperity is something with which
we, as his owners, have more or less
connection.