120 EGGS: THEIR PRESERVATION 



the effectual way to have better luck with Eggs would be to 

 destroy the "Cock" that lays such unmarketable articles. 

 Diseased ovaries are the undoubted cause, followed frequently 

 by the assumption of the manners, and even of the plumage 

 of the male. Such a change gives plausibility to the popular 

 notion of Cocks laying Eggs, which is not yet exploded among 

 the rustics. Whether it was an old form of speech or grounded 

 on any vague belief of the sort, Martin, before quoted, speaking 

 of the number of Eggs laid by the Fulmar, uses the masculine 

 gender throughout; thus, "he picks his Food out of the Back 

 of live Whales; they say he uses Sorrel with it, for both are 

 found in his Nest; he lays his Egg ordinarily the First, 

 Second, or Third day of May; which is larger than that of a 

 Solan Goose Egg, of a White Colour and very Thin, the shell 

 so very tender that it breaks in pieces if the Season proves 

 Rainy; when his Egg is once taken away, he lays no more 

 for that year, as other fowls do," &c., p. 55. 



In the days of ignorance, people were now and then thrown 

 into consternation by the appearance of Eggs marked with 

 inscriptions or symbols, in relief, or intaglio. But the evi- 

 dence of their having been laid in that state is so utterly 

 wanting, and the chemical means of fabricating them so simple, 

 that it is needless in these times to enter further into the 

 matter. Shell-less Eggs may be attributed, partly, to the 

 want of a sufficiency of phosphate of lime in the food of the 

 Hens, and sometimes to over-irritability in the Egg-organs, 

 analogous to that which, in the Mammalia, causes abortion. 



Another strange, but unsupported belief, or dream, which 

 I must think originated in a joke, or cram, from which impu- 

 tation the weight of Aristotle's authority does not relieve it,* 



* "Some domestic Hens, also, bring forth twice in the day; and 

 some, after having been very prolific, have died in consequence;" 

 History of Animals, Book vi., c. 1, as they do now. "I am very 



