The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1886-07-15
WONDERS OF INCUBATION.
Stages Of Developments Necessary to Cor
vert the Egg Into . Downy Chick.

Stages Of Development Necessary to Com
vert the Egg Into q Downy Chick.
1t is wonderful to trace the develop
ment of the chicken, during the process
of incubation, from the day on which
the mother hen begins her tedious term
of ''sitting" to the moment when the
downy biped bursts the shell and enters
on life as an animate and Independent
existence. In the pursuit of learning,
and in the interest of science, no seem.
ing destruction of material is of any
moment, and we trust no economical
poultry raiser will accuse us of extrava-
gance if we remove each day or oftenef
of the twenty-one days required for the
perfection of the chicken, a single egg,
and show you Gas far as we can COM
prehend the principles of creation) how
the feathered tribes of our barnyard are
made.
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 q sterile egg; but with this fact
assured, the hen has sat on her eggs
hardly twelve hours before we find some
lineaments of the head and body of q
chicken. The heart may be seen to
beat at the second day, and its aspect,
or shape, is that of q tiny horseshoe.
Blood-vessels appear at the end of the
second day, and their faint pulsation is
distinguishable, n being the left ven
tricle and the other the rudiment of the
great artery. About the fiftieth hour
one auricle of the heart appears, re-
sembling a loop folded down upon it
self. At the end of seventy hours symp-
toms of the wings r apparent, and on
the head five bubbles are seen, two fol-
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 visible, approach
nearer to the heart, and the liver APP.
pears toward the fifth day. At the
end of seven hours more we see
the lungs and stomach, and, with
wonderful rapidity, are developed
four hours afterward, the mites
tines, the loins and the upper jaw
At the one hundred and forty-fourtf
hour two ventricles are visible, and two
drops of blood instead of the single
drop which we had seen previously
The seventh day the brains seems te
have some consistency; and at the enc
of the two hundred and nineteenth houl
of incubation the bill opens and fesl
appears on the breast. Four hours at
ter the breast bone is seen; and in si1
hours after this the ribs appear, form
ing the back of the chicken; and the bill
is distinctly visible, as well as the gal
bladder. The bill becomes green at tn,
end of two-hundred and thirty-six hours
and ii we remove the chick from tn,
she'll it evidently To- itself. At tn
two hundredth hour the eyes appear
and lightweight hours after the ribs ar
perfect. At the three hundred ant
thirty-first the spleen draws near to tn
stomach and the lungs to the chest
About the fifteenth day the bill FIRE
| quently opens and shuts. and a careful
listener can catch the smothered cry o
| the imprisoned chick at the end of tn
eighteenth day.
For the remaining three days it grow
continually, developing the finishin,
touches to its various organs, and t
the silken covering of down which en-
velops the tiny creature from gloss
beak to slender drumstick. Strtngt
comes with all the accelerated forces G
quickening life, and a few strokes G
the powerful bill sets the pretty prisone
free, and his after life and prosperity
something with which we, as his own
ers, have more or less connection
american Poultry Yard.