856 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



States, by the common liming process, which 

 keeps them fit for every purpose except that 

 of boiling ; and in China, by covering them 

 with a paste of lime, salt, and ashes, from 

 which they come out, however, rather the 

 worse in appearance and smell. All eggs 

 brought to Paris must be examined before 

 being offered for sale ; and sorted, by being 

 passed through rings of three centimetres 

 eight millimetres in diameter for the small, 

 and four centimetres for the average size. 

 An ordinary fowl's egg weighs from one and 

 a half to two ounces ; the egg of the duck 

 from two to three ounces ; those of the sea- 

 gull and turkey from three to four ounces ; 

 that of the goose from four to six ounces. 

 Eggs of wild birds are esteemed on account 

 of the flavor that is given them by the food 

 of the birds, and on account of the larger 

 proportion of the more nutritious yellow that 

 they contain. The ostrich is beginning to 

 take rank as a valuable egg-producing 

 domestic fowl. Each female bird will lay 

 from twelve to sixteen, even, according to 

 some, from twenty-five to thirty eggs, in 

 August and September; and, as several 

 couples will sometimes unite to hatch to- 

 gether, it often happens that as many as 

 sixty eggs may be found in and around a 

 single nest. Each of these eggs is consid- 

 ered equivalent to twenty-four eggs of the 

 domestic hen ; so that, as single domesticated 

 birds have been said to lay eighty-two eggs 

 in a season, we have the possible product 

 of one ostrich represented by 2,624 hens' 

 eggs. The eggs of the Australian emu, 

 which are nearly as large as those of the 

 ostrich, and green, are eaten by the settlers 

 with much relish, although they are some- 

 what strong in flavor. The eggs of the 

 Rhea ostrich of the South American pam- 

 pas, of which forty, fifty, or seventy may be 

 found in a nest, form a staple article of food 

 during the spring months. The eggs of sea- 

 fowl are largely consumed in many places, 

 and those of the gull give rise to a consid- 

 erable trade. A business of this kind is ac- 

 tively carried on off the coast of Northum- 

 berland, where prodigious quantities of eggs 

 are collected ; at the Pedro Keys, near Ja- 

 maica, where several kinds of sea and land 

 birds resort ; the coasts of Norway and Lab- 

 rador ; Funk bland, near Newfoundland ; 

 parts of the African coast, and islands gen- 



erally. Eggs of water-fowl form an impor- 

 tant part of the food of the Faroe Islands ; 

 the eggs of the dusky petrel are sent, in 

 immense quantities, from Bass's Strait to 

 Tasmania and Australia ; incredible num- 

 bers of auks' eggs are collected on the 

 coast of Labrador ; the eggs of the rnalee- 

 bird of Celebes are esteemed a great deli- 

 cacy, and will each fill an ordinary tin cup, 

 and form, with bread or rice, a very good 

 meal. 



The Yellows in the Peach-Tree. Mr. 



W. K. Iligley has given in the " American 

 Naturalist " an account of the observations 

 he has made to learn the cause of the yel- 

 lows in the peach-tree and the manner in 

 which it is disseminated. He is satisfied 

 that the disease is due to a fungoid growth, 

 but not to a noemaspora, as ilr. Taylor, of 

 the Agricultural Department at Washing- 

 ton, believes, for that form occurs on other 

 trees that receive no harm from its pres- 

 ence ; nor to a fungus in the tissues of the 

 roots, for no fungus has been recorded as 

 occurring there. He worked, in his exam- 

 inations, upon the theory that the fungus 

 must be natural to the tree, enjoying the 

 same conditions of development as are fa- 

 vorable to the growth of the tree. Hence, 

 he took no pains to cultivate the plant, but 

 examined specimens as they were gathered 

 from diseased trees. Nothing was found in 

 the roots. Mycelia were found in sections 

 of the trunk, on the under side of the inner 

 bark next to the cambium layer, with many 

 of the filaments penetrating and ramifying 

 through that layer, and, in some specimens, 

 mycelia between the layers of wood. In 

 some of the smaller branches and the grow- 

 ing ends of the larger branches, the tissues 

 seemed to be completely filled with mycelia, 

 and in one case the bark appeared to be 

 split. Filaments of fungus were found in 

 the leaves of the abnormal branches char- 

 acteristic of trees affected with the yellows, 

 and the chlorophyl in all such leaves was 

 completely disorganized. The most satis- 

 factory results were obtained from the ex- 

 amination of the fruits, in which mycelia 

 were abundantly found just beneath the 

 skin, extending for a short distance into 

 the fleshy parenchyma. The form was the 

 same as that which was found in other parts 



