FANCIES AND SUPERSTITIONS. 157 



where there are markings, these are rather extraneous 

 to it than mixed with it. The elegant blue that distin- 

 guishes the eggs of the firetail and the hedge-sparrow, 

 though corroded away, is not destroyed by the muriatic 

 acid. The blue calcareous coating of the thrush's egg 

 is consumed ; but the dark spots, like the markings 

 upon the eggs of the yellow-hammer, house-sparrow, 

 magpie, &c., still preserve their stations on the film, 

 though loosened and rendered mucilaginous by this 

 rough process. Though this calcareous matter is partly 

 taken up during incubation, the markings upon these 

 eggs remain little injured, even to the last, and are 

 almost as strongly defiaed as when the eggs are first 

 laid. These circumstances seem to imply, that the 

 coloring matter on the shells of eggs does not contribute 

 to the various hues of the plumage ; but, it is reasonable 

 to conclude, are designed to answer some particular 

 object, not obvious to us : for though the marks are so 

 variable, yet the shadings and spottings of one species 

 never wander so as to become exactly figured like those 

 of another family, but preserve, year after year, a cer- 

 tain characteristic figuring. Few animal substances, in 

 a recent state, contain more hepatic gas than an egg- 

 shell, as is manifest from the very offensive smell that 

 proceeds from it when burned. A little of this is caused 

 by the gluten that cements the calcareous matter, but 

 the overpowering fetor comes from the inner membrane 

 that lines the shell. 



The superstitions and fancies of persons, though we 

 may often contemn them, are yet at times deserving of 

 notice, being occasionally to be traced to some former 

 received belief or national custom, and perhaps when 

 charactered by emblems or ceremonies may be consid- 

 ered as certainly originating from the tenets of some 

 sect or popular observance; the partiality manifested 

 by the English in general for flowers and horticultural 

 pursuits is recently, from a sentence in Pliny (Nat. 

 Hist. XIV. chap. 4), supposed to have been acquired 

 from their Roman conquerors ; and probably many other 

 attachments and practices, though obscured and per- 

 verted by time, have been retained from the example 

 O 





