Finding Hens' Eggs
Source:
What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games And Pastimes
Category:
IN THE COUNTRY
The farmer's wife usually has charge of the chickens and ducks, but
very often it is her daughter or a servant. No matter who it is, as
soon as she is convinced that you will be careful and thorough she
will let you hunt for eggs. This is very exciting, because hens have a
way of laying in nests in the wood and all kinds of odd places, hoping
that no one will find them and they will thus be able to sit and hatch
out their chickens. The hay in the stable is a favorite spot, and
under the wood-pile, and among the long grass. Sometimes one
overlooks a nest for nearly a week and then finds three or four eggs
in it, one of them quite warm. This is a great discovery. Just at
first it is easy to be taken in by the china nest-eggs, and to run
indoors in triumph with one in your hand. But the farmer's wife will
laugh and send you back with it, and the mistake is not likely to be
made again. After a while one gets to know the hens personally, and to
know the noise which means that they have just laid. Sometimes, if a
hen is going to lay just as you come to her nest, she will run off
clucking and screaming and lay the egg on the ground.
Next:
Ducks' Eggs
Previous:
Exploration
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