An Elevated Hen A queer nesting adventure has been watched
to its successful conclusion by a close neighbour of mine. On her house, as on mine, flourishes in unusual profusion a red honeysuckle, much enjoyed as a nesting sire. This year, at a height of about twelve feet, a pair of blackbirds built and brought off their clutch. The success passed not unobserved by a Leghorn hen, endowed with the activity highly marked in the breed. She flew to the old nest and laid in it a clutch of eggs. The nest broadened and flattened under her weight and proved strong enough and large enough for her to hatch the eggs. It was not, however, capacious enough for the hatched chickens, and they began to parachute down. Their light fluffy bodies happily took no harm. The evacuated and home-keeping chicks were collected and with their errant mother barely confined in a coop on the ground, where all nine are doing well. The tale is as tall and curious as an account given recently in The Times of a French partridge which deserted her eggs for thirty-four days, but on her belated return hatched the lot! For how long will eggs keep their germinating quality?
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