“The fowl of la Flèche, so renowned for the delicacy [[28]]of its flesh and its aptness for fattening, has no crest and is long-legged, with black plumage of green and purple luster. The legs are blue and the comb rises in two little red horns.
“Similar but better developed horns, accompanied by a thick headdress of feathers, adorn the Crève-cœur species. The hen is a beautiful black; the cock wears, against body plumage of the same dark color, a rich gold or silver tippet.
“Finally, to the large species belongs the Cochin-China, an ungraceful bird, with very strong body and shapeless and disordered plumage, generally reddish white. Its eggs are brownish in color.” [[29]]
CHAPTER IV
THE EGG
“When moistening your slices of bread with egg, has it ever occurred to you to examine a little the structure of what furnishes your repast? I think not. To-day I am going to tell you something about this: I will show you in detail this wonder called an egg.
“First, let us examine the shell. In hens’ eggs it is all white, as also in those of ducks and geese. Turkeys’ eggs are speckled with a multitude of little pale red spots. But it is particularly the eggs of undomesticated birds that are remarkable for their coloring. There are sky-blue ones, such as those of certain blackbirds; rose color for certain warblers; and somber green with a tinge of bronze is found, for example, in the eggs of the nightingale. The coloring is sometimes uniform, sometimes enhanced by darker spots, or by a haphazard sprinkling of pigment, or by odd markings resembling some sort of illegible handwriting. Many rapacious birds, chiefly those of the sea, lay eggs with large fawn-colored spots that make them look like the pelt of a leopard. I will not dwell longer on this subject, interesting though it may be, as in telling you the [[30]]story of the auxiliary birds I have already described the eggs of the principal kinds.”
“I have taken care,” interposed Jules, “to remember the curious variety of coloring that eggs have. I recall very distinctly the nightingale’s, green like an olive; the goldfinch’s, spotted with reddish brown, especially at the larger end; the crow’s, bluish green with brown spots; and so many others that I hesitate to say which are my favorites, so nearly equal are they in beauty.”
“Let us learn now about the nature of the shell,” his uncle continued. “The substance of the shell is, in the hen’s egg, as white as marble; its own color not being disguised by any foreign pigment. This pure white and its other characteristics, hardness and clean fracture, do they not tell you of what substance the shell is composed?”