COLLECTING AND TRAPPING 103 



shells, if the habits of the animals which evolved both of them 

 are not known and studied. Hence the disassociation of eggs 

 from the nests which contained them, and from the birds by 

 which they are made, is as painful to contemplate as nautilus 

 shells without their strange inhabitants, and there is no reason 

 why endless rows of egg-shells upon wool, or within cunningly 

 concealed cavities prepared for their reception, should not give 

 place to their arrangement in glass-topped boxes of no great 

 size, in which the lesser nests and eggs with a pair of their 

 producers (in the skin) should be exhibited — failing, of course, 

 their exhibition by the more complete methods sketched in 

 Chapter X. The methods of blowing eggs are so well known 

 now, that no schoolboy ever dreams of emptying their contents 

 by making two holes, but neatly drills one perfectly round 

 smooth hole on the least beautiful side, and blows out the white 

 and the yolk by various means. The drills, which are of steel, 

 can be readily purchased ; otherwise, one may be easily made 

 by filing one end of a piece of " pinion-wire " — used by clock- 

 makers — to an apex, and continuing the channels, by means of 

 a small three-cornered file, to the point. A needle being used at 

 first to make a small hole, is followed by the drill, which is 

 rapidly rotated and cuts a clear hole ; the contents are then 

 either sucked up through a fine glass tube into a bulb, or blown 

 out by holding the point of the blow-pipe some little distance 

 from (not within) the hole. Sometimes a syringe or a pressure- 

 ball held in the hand, or a species of small bellows does the 

 work of the mouth ; the egg-shell is then well washed out with 

 water, to which a little oil of cloves is added if the egg be stale, 

 and finally with corrosive sublimate (Formula 11). When 

 drained and dry, a small patch of paper cut with a punch 

 should be pasted over the hole, and the distinguishing number, 

 referring to a catalogue containing all particulars, marked in 

 ink upon the shell. For all the niceties of cutting out embryos, 



