flowing over the cloth; and the space underneath
was so arranged as to accommodate the
movements of the young chicks, after the
three weeks of incubation were ended. It is
admitted that the end was achieved; but
perhaps the cost was too great. At any rate, the
hydro-incubator went the same way as the
Eccaleobion.

The long building seen from the railway, is a
poultry-house of the new Poultry Company,
between three and four hundred feet in length by
twenty in width; the adjacent land is being laid
out for five other similar buildings. There will
be strips of market gardens between the several
buildings, and there will be courts of various
kinds for the chicks to take their pleasure
in. There will be tanks surmounting water
towers, for the supply both of the poultry
houses and the market gardens. In the one
poultry-house at present constructed, there
are wire-parted compartments on both sides
of a central avenue, perches for the fowls when
they want to go to roost, food and drink
receptacles conveniently placed, a steady
temperature maintained by hot-air pipes, doors
through which the fowls can go out from
their own apartment to a strip of open-air
garden, boxes with open sides next to the coops
or hutches, nests conveniently placed within
the boxes, facilities for the hen to go in and out
of the nest, brooding places for incubating the
eggs, artificial mothers for the chicks to creep
under when they want to be warm and snug,
and all sorts of ingenious little contrivances.
The company say they mean to adopt
hen–hatching, steam-hatching, or hot-air-hatching,
or all three, in order to give each system a fair
trial. They are going to supply us with eggs,
chickens, fowls, and capons, out of number.
Everything is to be done on a large scale.
The market garden will help to feed the poultry,
and will help Covent Garden Market besides.
There will be ducks and pigs fattened on refuse.
There will be ranges of killing, plucking, and
dressing, rooms for the poultry. There will be
a market found for the fowls' feathers, combs,
kidneys, heads, necks, and feet; all these things
being worth money to persons who know how
to deal with them. Poultry manure is said by
chemists to be among the richest of all
fertilisers; and a money value will be found for what
is wasted by most English poultry keepers.
The owner of the land is a partner in the company;
and the presiding genius, Mr. Geyelin,
has made himself acquainted with what is doing
by poultry rearers on the Continent. There are
blank forms to be tilled up every day, showing
cost price, number of eggs, weight of eggs,
quantity of food, cost of food, &c. The enterprise
deserves a fair trial; and if the shareholders
gain, it can only be because we, the
public, gain—that is, it will be worth our while
to buy largely, and so to return a good dividend
to the shareholders.

Who knows? While Mr. Frank Buckland is
working hard to improve our fish supply, this
or some similar company may be able to show
we may become an egg-eating and a
poultry–eating people. They could not do it at a better
time than m a time of scarcity.

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BT THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER LX. UPON THE SEA.

OLIMPIA had said truly when she averred
that Lord Castletowers was the only volunteer
whom her father would refuse to enlist on any
terms. When the young man met him presently
at the door of the Trinacria, and he learned
that they were about to follow the troops to
Melazzo, he used every argument to turn them
from the project.

"Think of Lady Castletowers," he said.
"Remember how she disapproves of the cause."

"It is a cause which for the last seven years
I have pledged myself to serve," replied the
Earl.

"But you never pledged yourself to serve it
in the field!"

"Because I never intended (through respect
for my mother's prejudices) to place myself in
a position that should leave me no alternative.
I had not the remotest intention of
coming here three weeks ago. If Montecuculi,
or Vaughan, or yourself had urged me to take
up arms for Sicily, I should have refused. But
circumstances have brought me here; and
having set my foot upon the soil, I mean to do
my duty."

"It is a false view of duty," said Colonna.
"You are peculiarly situated, and you have no
right to act thus."

"You must blame fate—not me," replied the
Earl.

"And you, Mr. Trefalden, have you asked
yourself whether your adopted father would
approve of this expedition?"

"My adopted father is a man of peace,"
replied Saxon, " and he loves me as he loves
nothing else on earth; but he would sooner send
me to my death than urge me to behave like a
coward."

"God forbid that I should urge any man to
do that," said Colonna, earnestly. "If the
enemies' guns were drawn up before these
windows, i would not counsel you to turn away
from them; but I do counsel you not to go
fifty miles hence in search of them."

"It is just as disgraceful to turn one's back
upon them at fifty miles' distance as at fifty
yards," said Saxon, who happened just then to
be thinking of Miss Hatherton's hint about the
goose and the golden eggs.

"But you were going to Norway," persisted
Signor Colonna. " You only came out of your
way to set me down in this place, and, having
set me down, why not follow out your former
plans?"

"Shall I tell you why, caro amico?" said the
Earl, gaily. " Because we are young—because
we love adventure, and danger—and, above all,
because we smell gunpowder! There—it is of