24 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



I begin to suspect the truth. Would not those little 

 stones be useful in making the eggshell?" 



" You are right, my little friend. The particles of 

 lime swallowed with the food are converted into a 

 fine pap, dissolved by the digestive action of the 

 stomach. By a rigorous sorting the pure lime is 

 separated from the rest, and it is made into a sort of 

 chalk soup which at the right moment oozes around 

 the egg and hardens into a shell. By swallowing lit- 

 tle particles of lime, the hen, as you see, lays by ma- 

 terials for her eggshell. If these materials were 

 wanting, if the food given her did not include lime, if, 

 imprisoned in a cage, she could not procure carbon- 

 ate of lime for herself by pecking in the ground, she 

 would lay eggs without any shell and simply cov- 

 ered with a flabby skin." 



" Those soft eggs that hens sometimes lay come 

 then from lack of lime?" asked Louis. 



"They either come from the bird's not having had 

 the necessary carbonate of lime in her food or in the 

 earth she pecked, or else her bad state of health did 

 not permit the transformation of the little stones into 

 that chalky pap which molds itself around the egg 

 and becomes the shell. In countries where carbon- 

 ate of lime is scarce in the soil, or even totally lack- 

 ing, it is the custom to break up the eggshells and mix 

 the coarse powder in the fowl's food. It is a very 

 judicious way of giving the hen in the most conven- 

 ient form, the stony matter necessary for the perfect 

 formation of the egg." 



"Sometimes," observed Louis, "we find on the 



