The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1882-04-12
Chickensas Tokens Of Friend
ship And EGGS For Garcia
lures.

A recent letter from New I Ork says
Within two years passed Easter ex-
changing Of presents has become al
common and fashionable as on Christ.
mas. The egg has given way to the
chicken, and the exchange of Easter
greetings is now made by means OF
deliberately painted and illuminated
cards. At almost every store in the
City bits Of chickens no larger than an
ordinary e~gg-shell, and whose coat.
have not fully developed from a mass
Of downy fuzz into well-defined feath-
ers, play an important part. Ever
since the FIRST of the year the incuba.
tors, or artificial mothers of thousands
of young chickens, have been at work
Matching out their brocds for the de.
mands Of this very recent and singular
taste. The chickens have a brief exis.
tencc after they leave the shell, rarely
exceeding a week, being turned over
at the end of that time to the hands of
the taxidermists. BY them they are
butchered, the delicate skins carefully
prepared, stuffed, and then turned over
to the hands of the manufacturers of
Easter novelties. There are several
houses now engaged in preparing these
birds for the market, and they have
been pressed to their Utmost capacity
with orders. On leaving the hands OF
tbs taxidermists, these little chickens
are mounted In ali sorts Of fantastic
and grotesquc shapes. A ~favorite
method is to mount the chick 80 that
it shall, with head askance, seem to be
gazing wonderingly at a broken egg
shell from which it has seemingly just
emerged. A pretty affect is produced
by mounting a couple OF the little fell
lows beside two broken shells, going
wonderingly at n another; the result
is quite comical. Frequently the vel
low chicks are represented as sitting
on a nest lying in a mass of dried
grasses and flowers. From underneath
its smooth little body and wing. vainly
stretched in an attempt to hide them
from view peep forth from two to four
cgg-shaped pellets, carefully covered
with silk of red, white, blue, pale
green. or notified tints. In other cases
the chick is mounted against a plaque,
sometimes as feeding, again as nesting
In a bed of weeds and grasses, and fire.
quently as kicking from the nest the
egg shell. Duckings of not a week old
humming-birds, inehcs, thrushes, and
other small birds are sacrificed TO fur
nish material for the construction Of
these pieces, which are just now the
particularly proper things for Easter
presents.
That the egg has not become obso,
lete is assured by the many forms In
which 1t appear among the mass of
designs for Easter gifts. In a Broad
way store the humorous side of the
prevailing Juror is very clevsrly shown.
and funny caricatures of we'll known
faces are the result. The large end is
enci.cled with aByronic collar of white
paper, q bit of blue silk serving as q
necktie. From the pointed and a mass
of black worsted falls over the back
and side of the shell, the mass being
carefully parted in the middle. The
portion Of the shell left exposed is
painted to represent q face, and the
result is one that needs no label 10 in
form the observer who the caricature
Oscar Wilde is as clearly
to be seen as in n Sarony's portraits.