With the exquisite simplicity of its geometry and its ornament, the bird’s egg enchants the least cultivated eye. In return for the little services which they render me, I sometimes admit to my study certain small boys of the neighbourhood, zealous searchers all. Now what do these simple-minded youngsters see in my work-room, of which they have heard all sorts of wonders? They see big, glass-fronted cupboards in which a thousand curious things are arranged, the cumbersome accumulations that gather about any one who investigates stones, plants and animals. Shells predominate. [[185]]
Huddling together in mutual encouragement, my shy visitors admire the magnificent Sea-snails of every shape and colour; they point a finger at this or that shell which, by the lustre of its mother-of-pearl, its size and its strange protuberances, is especially conspicuous in the midst of all the rest. They gaze at my treasures and I watch their faces. I read on them surprise, amazement and nothing more.
These things out of the sea, too complex in formation to impress a novice, are mysterious objects that speak no known language. My little giddy-pates are bewildered by these corkscrew stair-cases, these scrolls and spirals and conchs, whose geometry is beyond their comprehension. They are left almost cold before this display of oceanic wealth. If I could get at what lies at the back of their minds, these children would say:
“How funny!”
They would never say:
“How pretty!”
It is quite another story with the boxes in which the birds’-eggs of the district are arranged, clutch by clutch, lying on cotton-wool, [[186]]protected from the light. Now their cheeks flush with excitement and they whisper, in one another’s ears, which they would choose of the finest group in the box. There is no amazement now, but ingenuous admiration. It is true that the egg recalls the nest and the young birds, those incomparable joys of childhood. Nevertheless, a rush of reverent emotion evoked by the beautiful may be read on their faces. The gems of the sea astound my little visitors; the simple beauty of the eggs arouses a more human ecstasy.
In the very great majority of cases, the insect’s egg is far from attaining this consummate perfection, which impresses even the unaccustomed gaze. The usual shapes are the sphere, the spindle or cone, and the cylinder, with rounded ends, none of which is especially graceful, owing to the absence of harmonious combinations of curves. Many of them are dingy in colour; some, by their excessive richness, form a violent contrast with the shortcomings of the germ inside. The eggs of certain Moths and Butterflies are beads of bronze or nickel. In these life [[187]]seems to germinate within the rigid walls of a metal box.
If we employ the magnifying-glass, we find that ornamentation of detail is not unusual, but it is always complicated, without that nobler simplicity which constitutes true beauty. The Clythræ[1] enclose their eggs in a shell whose substance is laminated in scales like those of a hop-cone, or twisted into intersecting diagonal fillets; certain Locusts engrave their spindles, scooping out spiral rows of little pits like those of a thimble. There is, to be sure, no lack of prettiness in all this, but how far removed is such exuberance from the noble austerity of beauty!
The insect has ovarian æsthetics of its own, which have no relation to those of the bird. I know of one case, however, in which comparison is possible. An insect of indifferent repute, a woodland Bug, the Pentatoma of the naturalists, may offer its egg for comparison with the bird’s. This flat-bodied insect, emitting a horrible smell, lays masterpieces of elegant simplicity, and, [[188]]at the same time, of mechanical ingenuity; it disgusts us by its cosmetic, its hair-oil; but it interests us by its egg, which is worthy to rank beside that of the bird.