258 Olf THE EGG. 



lantern ou the tower of our Cathedral of St. Nicholas stands on 

 intersecting arches which subtend the form of the sharp end of 

 a hen's egg. Many so-called Grothic windows terminate above in 

 an egg-shaped arch. Our drains for sanitary purposes are made 

 not square-bottomed as formerly, but egg-shaped, with the sharp 

 end downwards so as to allow of sewage being carried down 

 more rapidly and completely — an unsavoury but eminently use- 

 ful adaptation of form and beauty. In writing correctly the 

 letters of the alphabet, the form of either end of the hen's egg 

 is the model to be imitated. The copper-plate copy-heads for 

 schools have all their letters formed on the model of an egg. 

 The original form of all creatures is that of an egg. Harvey, 

 the great discoverer of the circulation of the blood declared and 

 with truth, more than 270 years ago, Omne vivum ex ovo. Fur- 

 ther, the bodies of mammals, birds, insects, mollusca and many 

 of the still lower animals, are more or less egg-shaped in Avhole 

 or in part. Of plants likewise, in some cases the whole plant, in 

 most, the leaves, the fruit, the seeds, participate in exhibiting 

 more or less of the same beautiful form. 



"We may safely carry this investigation further, and even to 

 individual parts of the external and internal organization of man 

 and animals. Many of our own external organs present in their 

 general outline a form more or less exact of an egg, for example, 

 the head, the face, the eye, the ear, the tongue, the hand, the 

 foot, and so forth. The same can be said of the internal organs 

 for example the heart, the two lungs taken together, the glands, 

 and other internal parts. In short, this curious form pervades 

 the whole of nature. 



Now, birds' eggs present almost innumerable modifications of 

 the form we are considering, from the almost round or orbicular 

 egg of the ostrich, and sparrow hawk, to the elliptical eggs of 

 the emu, rhea, and cassowary, which are rounded at each end 

 alike, and to the markedly pyriform ova of the plovers and other 

 wading birds and guillemots. 



The colour is one of the properties of eggs that excites con- 

 siderable interest, and which, in its beauty varies greatly. Whilst 

 the eggs most in use and estimation arc white, — though there 



