108 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I 9 I 4 . 
ity (or variability) of the egg characters of an individual tends 
to be general, but may manifest itself in different characters to 
quite different degrees. 
6. A comparison of the relative degree of variation in the 
individual and in the race shows that in general the eggs of 
an individual resemble each other much more closely than do 
a random sample of the eggs of the same strain. The eggs of 
certain individuals, however, show a much higher percentage of 
the variation of the race than those of some of the other indi- 
viduals. In certain egg characters there is a general tendency 
for the individual variation to approach more nearly the limits 
of the race variation than in other characters. Finally certain 
characters may display a variation relatively greater in a par- 
ticular individual than in the race. This indicates that the 
egg characters are determined by an interaction of hereditary 
and environmental forces which may cause a particular char- 
acter to reach or surpass the racial limits of variation within the 
eggs of one individual. 
INTRA-INDIVIDUAL VARIATION. 
The different degree of variation shown by the several egg 
characters in each individual is also clearly seem. The four fol- 
lowing relationships between the degree of variation in the 
separate characters are clearly demonstrated, either by compar- 
ing the average individual variation for each character taking 
the group of birds as a whole, or by considering separately the 
several coefficients for each bird. 
1. The egg varies more in respect to weight of shell and 
weight of yolk than in respect to any of the other characters . 
A few individuals show significant differences between the 
amount of variation in these characters. The eggs of some 
individuals vary more in respect to the one and some in respect 
to the other. 
2. Egg weight and albumen weight are about equally varia- 
ble. They are decidedly less variable than shell weight and 
yolk weight and much more variable than either length oh 
breadth. The difference between the variation for these two 
characters is significant for very few individuals. 
3. Both length and breadth are much less variable than any 
of the weight characters of the egg. 
