THE POULTRY BOOK. 
331 
of tlie egg-passage, and as it passes along lias successively secreted around it the 
white, with its twisted herds, which serve to maintain the yolk in a proper position 
in the shell ; the membranes lining the shell ; and, lastly, the shell itself ; the 
white being necessarily formed at the upper part, the membrane at the middle 
section, and the shell at the lower part of the oviduct or egg-passage. 
The ovary is not often subject to disease, except in old hens past laying, in which 
it sometimes degenerates ; and it not unfrequently happens that the hen so affected 
is healthy in all other respects, and is only known to he diseased by her not laying, 
and frequent crowing : sometimes, as in the case of barren hen pheasants, she 
assumes the plumage of the male bird. 
INFLAMMATION AND PROTRUSION OF THE EGG-PASSAGE. — SOFT EGGS. 
Symptoms . — The symptoms of this complaint vary with the part of the oviduct 
affected. As the disorder occurs in laying hens, we are enabled to trace the seat 
of the complaint by the state of the extruded egg. If the lower part is unduly 
excited, the egg is expelled before the shell has been secreted, and a soft- skinned 
egg results. If the inflammation extends to the middle portion, the membrane 
is either misshapen or incomplete ; and if the whole tube is inflamed, the yolks 
are dropped without any covering whatever. 
The laying of soft eggs arises from several causes; and if all cases are treated 
alike, such an empirical method will certainly not be followed by success. The 
shell of the egg consists almost entirely of carbonate of lime, the same material 
which, in a different form, produces chalk, marble, limestone, and the shells 
of such animals as oysters, &c. The requisite quantity required for the 
formation of the eggshell must be obtained in or with the food, otherwise soft 
eggs result. When unshelled eggs arise from a deficiency of calcareous matter, 
the remedy is evident ; a quantity of old mortarr ubbish, or oyster- shells heated 
to redness and then broken up, readily supply the material required. 
Another cause of soft eggs is the excitement of the fowl from being driven 
about, or being worried in any manner. Heavy fowls, such as Creve Coeurs or 
Dorkings, &c., that are not so active as the smaller varieties of poultry, suffer much 
from being driven, frequently laying soft eggs afterwards. The remedy in this 
case is sufficiently simple, being merely rest. 
Inflammation of the oviduct, or egg-passage, is a third cause, and in this case 
the eggs produced are usually irregular in form, or very imperfect. When the 
inflammation is very severe, the yolks may be expelled, as they are received from 
the ovary, without any white or membrane ; at other times the white may be 
expelled with the yolks, or the eggs may be imperfectly or irregularly enclosed 
in membrane. The treatment of inflammation of the egg-passage is sufficiently 
simple. The object is to lower the inflammatory action ; and this is best done 
by the use of a remedy which I proposed some years since, namely, one grain 
of calomel and one- twelfth of a giain of tartar emetic, given in barley-meal. 
