“The ridiculous marvel of the supposed cock’s eggs,” returned Louis, “thus becomes a very simple thing; but one must first know that serpents lay eggs.”
“Henceforth you will know that not only serpents but all reptiles lay eggs just as birds do. Snakes’ eggs are flabby, and for covering have only a sort of skin resembling wet parchment. Moreover, they are [[34]]long in shape, which is far from being the usual form. But the eggs of some reptiles, notably of lizards, have the shell firm and of the fine oval shape peculiar to birds’ eggs. If you ever encounter in holes in the wall, or in dry sand well exposed to the sun, little eggs, all white, with shell as fine as a little canary bird’s, do not cry out at the strangeness of your discovery; you will simply have come across the eggs of a gray lizard, the usual inhabitant of old walls.” [[35]]
CHAPTER V
THE EGG
(Continued)
“Let us return to the hen. We know the calcareous nature of the shell; now let us look at the structure. Open your eyes wide and look attentively; you will see on the shell, chiefly at the large end, a multitude of tiny dents such as might be made by the point of a fine needle. Each of these dents corresponds to an invisible hole that pierces the shell through and through and establishes communication between the interior and the exterior. These holes, much too small to let out the liquid contents of the egg, nevertheless suffice both for the emission of humid vapors, which are dissipated outside the shell, and for the admission of air, which penetrates within and replaces the evaporated humidity.
“The presence of these innumerable openings is absolutely necessary for the awakening and keeping up of life in the future chicken. Every living thing breathes, and all life springs into being and continues through the action of air. The seed that germinates under ground must have air. Planted too deep, it perishes sooner or later without being able to rise, because the thick bed of earth prevents [[36]]the air from reaching it. The egg must have air so that its substance, gently warmed by the brooding mother hen, may spring into life and become a little chicken; it must have it continually, shut up as it is in its shell. Thanks to the openings with which the shell is riddled, the air penetrates sufficiently to meet the needs of respiration; it quickens the substance of the egg and the little being slowly forming within.”
“One might say,” Emile here put in, “that these holes are so many little windows through which air reaches the bird in its narrow cell of the egg.”
“These windows, as Emile calls them,” his uncle went on, “deserve our attention from another point of view. Eggs are a precious alimentary provision; the difficulty is to keep them for any length of time. If they get too old they spoil and give out then an infectious, bad smell. Well, then, what causes the eggs to spoil and changes them to repulsive-smelling filth is again air—the same air so indispensable to the formation of the chicken. That which gives life to the egg under the heat of the brooding hen brings destruction just as quickly when the warmth is wanting. If, then, it is proposed to preserve in a state of freshness as long as possible eggs destined for food, it is necessary to prevent the access of air into their interior, which is done by closing the openings in the shell. Several means may be employed. Sometimes eggs are plunged for a moment into melted grease, from which they are drawn out covered with a coating that obstructs all the orifices; sometimes they are varnished. The simplest [[37]]method is to keep them in water in which a little lime has been dissolved. This dissolved lime deposits itself on the shell and closes the openings. These precautions taken, the air can no longer find a passage to penetrate into the interior and the eggs are preserved in good condition much longer than they would be without this preparation. Nevertheless they always spoil in the long run.”