36 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COLLECTORS 



the shell and, where possible, it will be found desirable to blow the egg while 

 holding it in a stream of running water under a tap. In some species the 

 surface pigment of the shell may be smeared by handling when it is freshly 

 laid, and where there is evidence of this great care must be taken in handling 

 and cleaning the shell. Incubated eggs are difficult to deal with. If the 

 formed embryo is small it may be possible to destroy it and remove it through 

 the hole with a curved needle or small wire hook. With embryos too large 

 and solid for these, elaborate methods have been advocated, but if the shell is 

 needed the simplest way is to try and break the shell into two as neatly as 

 possible, and then carefully preserve the two halves. 



In cases where the eggs contain embryos in a very advanced stage of 

 development these may be more important than the shell. To preserve them 

 a portion of the shell should be removed, and a preserving fluid such as is 

 used for preserving whole specimens should be injected into the egg, care 

 being taken to pierce the membranes surrounding the embryo. The whole 

 egg can then be immersed and treated like a whole specimen (p. 33), the data 

 being noted in pencil or indian ink on the shell instead of a label. 



Packing eggs 



Eggshells are extremely fragile. They should be wrapped individually in 

 cotton wool and then placed in a container in which all the free space has 

 been filled with soft padding so that the eggs will not move. The container 

 should be sufficiently rigid to withstand pressure, since both pressure passed 

 to the eggs through the packing, and sudden jolting of insufficiently padded 

 eggs, may break them. 



