EGGS OF VAUIOUS KINDS AS FOOD. 197 



■considered to be as delicate as fowl, the legs coarser in 

 flavour, being more like beef, but still tender. 



In the Pampas of South America, from 40 to 50 and 

 even 70 eggs have been found in one nest of the Rhea 

 Americana, the eggs lying on one another, tier upon tier. 

 Perhaps twenty eggs will lie at the bottom of the nest, 

 the others at the top of these. When fresh, the eggs are 

 of a yellow colour, with clear white spots like wet lime 

 attached to the surface. When stale the egg becomes 

 white, and loses the spot-like appearance. These eggs 

 form a staple commodity of food during the months of 

 September, October and November. 



Plovers' Eggs. — A popular periodical quaintly asks : — 

 " Where do all the plovers' eggs come from ? They are 

 seen at all sorts of meals — dinners, wedding breakfasts, 

 show luncheons, pic-nics, evening-party refreshment 

 tables, ball-suppers. In all sorts of forms, too, do they 

 appear ; nestling in moss, held in bondage caressingly by 

 succulent jelly, pearly and cool, the golden yolk just sug- 

 gested through the semi-transparent white. Pi'odigiously 

 good they are, in whatever shape presented, but pro- 

 digiously mysterious also, in their faculty of turning up in 

 enormous quantities for the London season, and then dis- 

 appearing with- equally strange and inexplicable despatch. 

 Very rarely does one encounter these plovers' eggs except 

 during the London season ; and as to the plovers them- 

 selves, now and then, in crossing a breezy upland, the 

 pedestrian's attention is caught by their shrill, plaintive 

 •cry, and their rapid flight round and round his head,, as 

 they seek to draw him away from the nest which lies 

 ■close by ; but it is only now and then that the plovers 

 are thus met with, and even where they are thickest, 

 their numbers do Jiot account for those innumerable 

 ■dishes full of their eggs." 



What are usually sold as plovers' eggs are those of the 

 common lapwing ( Vanellm cristatus, Meyer). The search 

 for plovers' eggs is a science as well as a passion in Hol- 

 land. Even from the flight of the bird some Dutch 

 farmers deduce whether the plover has eggs, and where- 



