256 on THE EGG. 



The word eff^ is of Northern origin — it was hatched among the 

 Teutonico-Scandinavian hordes in ancient days, perhaps before 

 they came to their present homes. It is the same word effg in 

 Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Anglo-Sax., with a little differ- 

 ence in spelling. In Ger. and Flemish it is ei, and in Early 

 English ei, ay, eie, egge. In Southern Europe the name is — in 

 Gr. (iiov, or oLov, one, a hen laying commonly one only each day ; 

 in Latin ovum perhaps related to avis, a bird ; in Ital. uovo, Sp. 

 hiievo, Port, ovo, old Fr. uef, pi. oes, mod. cBuf, pi. ceufs. The 

 IS'orthern and the Southern names are really the same. 



The object we call egg has been from the earliest times, one 

 of universal and absorbing interest, and that for various reasons, 

 religious and other. It has always been regarded as a wonderful 

 — miraculous thing (which indeed it really still is), mysterious, 

 apparently inscrutable, and with a halo, even of divinity about 

 it, and these feelings were transferred to the author of the egg 

 — the cock and the hen. They were all, indeed, in early ages 

 worshipped or were sacrificed to other idols. Socrates, before his 

 death, reminded his friends that they owed a cock to JEscula- 

 pius. Various were the superstitions and legends current among 

 the ancient, and still are, even among modern nations, that have 

 clustered around the egg, which, if collected from various quar- 

 ters, would fill volumes, and form subjects of great interest and 

 considerable value. The world was an egg to the ancients. The 

 mundane egg was represented on a coin of Tyre, surrounded and 

 protected by the serpent, which also was an object of worship, 

 and was considered typical of the Avisdom and poAver of the 

 Supreme Being. The hen of the fairy tales that lays the golden 

 eggs rerepresents the mythical sky which day by day gives birth 

 to its egg — the sun. The Easter, Paschal, Paste egg was a sym- 

 bol of the celestial egg, of abundance, of the sun, of the spring 

 time, etc. ; but since the Christian era began has been an emblcDi 

 of the Resurrection, and of Him who died and rose again from the 

 dead. But we have no time this evening to go further into the 

 subject of the mythological egg, and so must proceed to consider 

 the physical properties of the hen's egg. 



In size, eggs in general vary ii good deal ; if the Avifauna, in 



