angtse I have seen them in mid-stream floating down in compact
masses with the racing current and surrounded by their guardians in
tubs, who, armed with long bamboos, smartly whack any bird which may
happen to stray away from the flock until it rejoins its companions.

These ducks are apparently always of one age, be it a month, three
months or full-grown, which fact had ever been a source of mild
surprise to me, in view of the number of simultaneous broods which
would be necessary to hatch off such swarms, until the matter was
explained.

A friend of mine gave a tiffin party of four good men and true on his
stern-wheel house-boat, the motive power for which was supplied by
half-a-dozen coolies driving the wheel with their feet, on the same
principle as the tread-mill, and we were gliding up the Taipa Channel
near Macao at about four knots, when suddenly our craft came into a
sea of egg-shells sailing gaily before the breeze and having at a
short distance much the appearance of water-lilies.

For a quarter of an hour or so we ploughed through these shells, which
must have numbered tens of thousands, making various conjectures as to
their origin, until our host, who had been below superintending the
icing of the champagne, came on deck and explained that they
undoubtedly were from an incubator in which ducks had just been
hatched. This was new to me, so I asked him for details, but he
replied that beyond knowing of the incubators and that they were made
of manure and lime in which eggs were buried until hatched, he had not
been able to procure further information.

Since then I have made many inquiries, but the Chinese will reveal
little beyond the fact that incubators "have always existed" for the
hatching of ducks and geese.

A gentleman whose knowledge of the Chinese and their ways is
unsurpassed has also kindly tried to find out, but with limited
success, for, he says, it is regarded as a trade secret and the duck
farmers will not divulge the process. However, he ascertained that the
hatching takes place in early spring, when "a kind of primitive
incubator is used. The eggs are placed in a big basket covered with
straw or cotton wool, about a thousand eggs in one basket. Under this
basket a charcoal fire is lit to keep the required temperature. The
work is carried on in closed rooms and one man is always in attendance
turning the eggs. Only eggs of ducks and geese are thus treated."

Whether these incubators a