The Eggs of Birds 



By Gene Stratton Porter 



Perhaps the most fascinating phase of Nature is the way in which she cares 

 for her children during the early part of their lives. The story of seeds and eggs 

 has not been half told. Think of the tiny thistle-fluff which soars away, borne on 

 the lightest breath of air ; of the great cocoanuts in their husks, so hard that they 

 will turn the edge of a knife ; of the burrs which ever patiently reach out for some 

 passing creature to carry them to a distant home ; of the cones of the forest, 

 whose seeds may be transported by birds, or dropped to the ground only to 

 smother in the shadow of the parent tree. 



In that ''mother of life," the sea, the wonder of the first beginnings holds us 

 spellbound. We see the tiny hydroids, those animal plants, flowering and bud- 

 ding on their waving stalks, and presently setting free their "seeds" — jelly-fish- 

 throbbing with life, drifting away on ocean currents. Again observe these jellies 

 scattering behind them an untold host of eggs, as a rocket marks its path with 

 a myriad sparks. Think of the salmon seeking her spawning grounds in the upper- 

 most reaches of rivers, or the cod boldly playing for her offspring the chance in 

 the lottery of life in the open ocean. Of her nine millions of eggs, will one 

 survive ? 



How strange is the four-tendriled, purse-like cradle of the baby shark; how 

 delicate the forms and patterns of butterflies' eggs ! And was there ever a more 

 model parent than that frog which holds its eggs in its mouth until the tadpoles 

 grow up? 



The white leathery eggs of turtles and lizards bring us to our subject. Lead- 

 ing all in beauty and interest are the eggs of birds. Precious stones have always 

 exerted a great fascination over mankind, and in appearance birds' eggs may be 

 compared w^ith gems ; indeed, the shell itself is almost wholly composed of mineral 

 matter. But, far from being an inanimate crystal, an egg shelters one of the 

 marvels of the world — an embryo bird. The gaudy sea-shell cloaks a slimy snail, 

 but from the beautiful egg of a bird emerges a greater beauty. 



Reptiles lay Avhite eggs whose shells are not brittle, but, when broken, curl 

 up like celluloid film. Some of these reptilian eggs are oblong in shape, but most 

 are spherical and the great majority are deposited in the ground, or under bark, 

 and are hatched by the heat of the decaying vegetation, or by the direct rays of the 

 sun. Thus we see that there is little need for variation in shape or color. Among 

 birds, however, we find very different conditions. 



That which adds the greatest interest to anything is the why of it, and a vast 

 collection of eggs, beautiful though they are, yet, if ignorantly looked at, is worse 

 than useless. Why one bird lays twenty eggs and another but two ; why one 

 bird's eggs are white, another's of varied colors, we will never learn from blown 



667 



