322 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 1916. 



sex organs at the time the double egg was produced. In each 

 of the other four cases the bird producing the double egg was 

 a normal heavy laying bird. The double egg occurred in a 

 normal clutch of from two to five eggs. In each case the 

 double egg was the only abnormal egg ever produced by the 

 bird. 



D. EVIDENCE FROM EGG RECORDS AND EGG CONTENTS. 



In case a bird which produced a dwarf egg was not autopsied 

 the morphological condition and the physiological state of the 

 sex organs at the time the dwarf egg was laid can be judged 

 reasonably accurately by the egg record. In all cases not dis- 

 cussed under the section on "Abnormal Physiological Condi- 

 tions Associated with Dwarf Egg Production" the dwarf egg 

 was produced within a litter, all the other eggs of which were 

 normal. As already shown, the dwarf egg took any position in 

 the clutch and litter. In all cases there was abundant evidence 

 from the egg record that the sex organs were in active condition 

 and were capable of producing normal eggs. 



In the center of the thick albumen of every dwarf egg ex- 

 amined was found some firmer material. In a number of cases 

 this firmer nucleus was simply a few coagulated threads of 

 albumen which resembled the threads of a normal chalaza. 

 Sometimes the mass of threads has the appearance of a normal 

 chalaza, but more often it is an irregular mass of untwisted 

 threads. Such a mass of threads or one (rarely two) more 

 or less perfect chalaza is present in nearly all the dwarf eggs. 



Table 9 shows the number and percentage of each kind of 

 dwarf eggs classified as to the nature of the contained nucleus. 



