Chap. 80.] 
HOW EGGS AEE BEST KEPT. 
239 
bleed from the eyes, while the females lay their eggs with no 
less difficulty. 
The eagle sits for thirty days, as do most of the larger birds ; 
the smaller ones, the kite and the hawk for instance, only 
twenty. The eagle mostly lays but one egg, never more than 
three. The bird which is known as the segolios,''^* lays four, 
and the raven sometimes five ; they sit, too, the same number 
of days as the kite and the hawk. The male crow provides 
the female with food while she is sitting. The magpie lays 
nine eggs, the malancoryphus more than twenty, but always 
an uneven number, and no bird of this kind ever lays more ; so 
much superior in fecunditj^ are the smaller birds. The young 
ones of the swallow are blind at first, as is the case also with 
almost all the birds the progeny of which is numerous. 
CHAP. 80. WHAT EGGS AEE CALLED HYPEREMIA, AND WHAT 
CYNOSUEA. HOW EGGS ARE BEST EEPT. 
The barren eggs, which we have mentioned as hypenemia," 
are either conceived by the females when they are influenced 
by libidinous fancies, and couple with one another, or else at 
the moment when they are rolling themselves in the dust ; 
they are produced not only by the pigeon, but by the common 
hen as well, the partridge, the pea-hen, the goose, and the 
chenalopex ; these eggs are barren, smaller than the others, of 
a less agreeable flavour, and more humid. There are some 
who think that they are generated by the wind, for which 
reason they give them the name of zephyria." The eggs 
known as " urina,'* and which by some are called *^cy- 
nosura,^^ are only laid in the spring, and at a time when the 
hen has discontinued sitting. Eggs, if soaked in vinegar, are 
rendered so soft thereby, that they may be twisted round 
the finger like a ring. The best method of preserving them is 
to keep them packed in bean -meal, or chaff, during the 
winter, and in bran during the summer. It is a general be- 
lief, that if kept in salt, they will lose their contents. 
Possibly the night-hawk. Sillig says, that in the corresponding pas- 
sage of Aristotle it is diTwXiog. 
35 ii Dog's-nrine." See the last Chapter. 
36 Hardouin asserts that this is the fact. 
