Sea egg

“ When the eggs have been removed to some distance, it has been noticed to go towards them, take them up again, and move off with them, showing that these animals so low in structure, and apparently deprived of all instinct, (if any animal can be supposed to be without it,) really watch over their young. A Sea-egg or two will be great pets. Of shells we should select specimens of the Fwus or Spindle shell, their bright red feet rendering them very attractive, as they crawl up the sides of the tank ”

“ Their gait on land is shuffling, while they can hardly rise from level ground; the note is a harsh croak or chatter; the food consists of fish, squids, and other produce of the sea. No nest is made, but a single reddish-brown or buff egg, with spots and frecklings of red-brown, purplish or grey, is deposited in a hole or crevice in a cliff, among rocks, or even in a cavity in a rotten tree, both sexes assisting in incubation. ”

“ The fish egg is like the others, with an especially clear jelly that one can easily see into. Frog eggs and star-fish eggs and sea-urchin eggs, most sorts of eggs in fact, split fairly in two the first time they split at all, the whole yolk divides and the little animal, from the first moment when there is any at all, is always as large as the egg. But birds’ eggs, most fish eggs, and some other sorts too, are so loaded down with fat that the egg does not divide clear thru, but as I have already explained, only at a tiny spot on one side where the jelly is thickest. ”

“ Another delicacy is a kind of very small fish egg, deposited by a sort of herring on fine twigs of hemlock placed by the natives in certain places in the sea for the purpose. The eggs are clustered on the twigs until they are as big as one's thumb, thousands upon thousands, upon a small branched limb. ”

“ The adults rarely pay any attention to the eggs, which are hatched directly by the heat of the sun or by heat absorbed from the water. The length of incubation varies much. When the young fish leaves the egg-shell it carries, in the case of most species, a part of the yolk still hanging to its body. Its eyes are very large, and its fins are represented by thin strips of membrane. It usually undergoes no great changes in development from the first, resembling the adult except in size. ”

“ The eggs, which are generally laid singly or in pairs on either side of a leaf, sometimes on a stalk, are yellowish-green in colour. The shell is said to be netted, but under a fairly strong lens this does not show. About four hundred is probably the average number for a female to lay in a state of nature, but they seem not to deposit so many when reared from the egg in confinement. ”

“ I have even known the eggs carelessly dropped on the bare ground in a corner of a potato-field, and have found the female sitting on her eggs in all the bright glare of a noonday sun in June, and to all appearance undisturbed by its brilliance. A more common situation for the eggs is a slight hollow of a bare rock, the dark weather-beaten shades of which, with its brown and slate-colored mosses and lichens, resembling both the parent and the egg in their coloring, are well adapted to screen them from observation or detection. ”

“ Most of these queer eggs are oblong and quadrangular, with the four corners produced into a sort of handles or streamers, often ending in long tendrils, and useful for attaching them to corallines or seaweeds on the bed of the ocean. But it is worth noticing that in colour the egg-cases closely resemble the common wrack to which they are oftenest fastened; and as they wave up and down in the water with the dark mass around them, they must be almost indistinguishable from the wrack itself by the keenest-sighted of their enemies. ”

“ The implements of the fish-culturist are few and simple. A few feathers may be kept on hand to use in spreading the eggs when placing them in the troughs, in collecting them for packing, and moving them in the search after dead eggs. Nippers made of wire or some elastic wood, like red cedar, bent or cut into the shape of the letter U, elongated to about six inches, and with loops of wire at the ends about the eighth of an inch wide, will hold an egg without trouble. A small homœopathic phial is used to examine the eggs. ”

“ Within a few hours after, the female, thus impregnated, begins to lay her eggs in the following manner. She singles out a leaf, grass, or some such matter, that is floating just below the surface of the water, in some pond, and, hovering in the air about a foot above this spot, on a sudden she descends, and dips the extremity of her tail in the water, at which instant she discharges an egg, that at the moment of its emission is inveloped in a glutinous liquid, sufficiently tenacious to enable it to adhere firmly on the floating substance above-mentioned without sinking. ”

“ The spawning oyster does not allow its ripe eggs to fall into the water, as do many other mollusks, but retains them in the so-called beard, the mantle, and gill-plates until they become little swimming animals. The eggs are white, and cover the mantle and gill-plates as a semi-fluid, cream-like mass. As soon as they leave the generative organs the development of the germ begins. The entire yolk-mass of the egg divides into cells, and these cells form a hollow, sphere-like body, in which an intestinal canal arises by the invagination of one side. ”

“ No plan of inclosed sea-ponds, however large they might be, will meet the case; the fish-eggs will require to be hatched in floating cylinders specially constructed for the purpose, so as to admit of the eggs being always under the influence of the sea-water, and at the same time exposed to the eye of skilled watchers. It is believed by persons well qualified to judge, that the eggs of our more valuable sea-fishes may in the way indicated be dealt with in almost incredible numbers. ”

“ The number of eggs varies from three to seven, and are frequently laid long before the ice and snow have disappeared. “The eggs vary from oval to oblong oval in shape, are pure white in color, and somewhat glossy, the shell is smooth and fine-grained.” Incubation begins as soon as the first egg is laid, and both sexes participate in this duty, and occasionally both are found on the nest at the same time. At the nesting season the courage of both sexes is very marked. The male will fight with its talons, and even when wounded will still defend itself. ”

“ The eggshell will now be beyond the reach of corruption; the membrane for ever retains its pristine whiteness, and no insect, for the time to come, will ever venture to prey upon it. If you wish your egg to appear extremely brilliant, give it a coat of mastic varnish, put on very sparingly with a camel-hair pencil: green or blue eggs must be done with gum arabic, as the mastic varnish is apt to injure the colour.
2342. Fishes
Large fishes should be opened in the belly, the entrails taken out, and the inside well rubbed with pepper, and stuffed with oakum. ”

“ The eggs are about half as large as a lead pencil in diameter, and the poor ones are white, the others colorless. In one of the many shallow troughs in the building through which water is constantly running were thousands of eggs spread out just ready to hatch. When they break through the shell the little fish are scarcely longer than the egg itself, which remains attached to them and is finally absorbed. ”

“ Many close observers now reject this idea because they find that birds supplied with digestible mineral foods do not eat those that are not digestible. A bird does not need teeth to grind its food, because it is softened in the crop and the gastric juice acts upon it before the grinding process begins.
Peculiarities of birds' eggs. The only animal foodstuff produced in a natural package, easily preserved and handled, is the egg. In the vegetable world we have a great many such things—fruits, seeds, roots, nuts, with coverings of various textures to protect the contents from the air. ”

“ One pint of coarse salt, and one pint of unslacked lime, to a pailful of water. If there be too much lime, it will eat the shells from the eggs; and if there be a single egg cracked, it will spoil the whole. They should be covered with lime-water, and kept in a cold place. The yolk becomes slightly red; but I have seen eggs, thus kept, perfectly sweet and fresh at the end of three years. The cheapest time to lay down eggs, is early in spring, and the middle and last of September. It is bad economy to buy eggs by the dozen, as you want them. ”

“ Brown, blue, green, red, and yellow eggs occur. Greenish or greenish-white are common tints. The eggs are often ornamented with dots and lines of darker color. Species which are related to one another show their affinity even in the form of their eggs. At the upper end of the eggs of insects there are one or more curious structures, known as micropyles (little doors) , through which the spermatozoa of the male find ingress and they are fertilized. These can only be seen under a good microscope.
Fig. 4.—Egg of Anosia plexippus, magnified 30 diameters (Riley) . ”

“ Eggs brownish grey, spotted with brown and black.
This is a generally diffused species, occurring in considerable numbers, not only on various parts of our coast, but in the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the northern parts of America. It repairs in spring either to rocky islands, steep cliffs, or sometimes to inland lakes, where it builds a rather large nest of tufts of grass, and lays two or three eggs. When the young are [Pg 286] hatched it is very impatient of having its stronghold invaded, and resents molestation by darting at the head of the intruder. ”

“ Some of them on the face of the rock, or in a shallow fissure, and which have been occupied for years, are piled up to the height of from three to five feet, but in this case they always lean against the rock. The egg, which is solitary, and presents nothing remarkable in its position, is of an elongated oval form, bluish-white, dull, with a chalky surface, usually patched with yellowish-brown dirt. It is subjected to what might appear rough usage, for the bird in alighting, flying off, or when disturbed by the intrusion of human visitors, tosses it about, and often stands upon it. ”

“ All these sea-birds’ eggs are large, because the young, on leaving the shell, must be strong enough to follow their parents on the water and begin to earn their own living. And then, what variety of color and design! There are white eggs, yellowish eggs, and red eggs. Some are dark green, imitating the color of the waves that roar at the base of the rock; others seem to borrow their pale blue from the azure itself. These are diversified with areas of different colors, like the maps in your geography; those are painted with large spots and remind one of the leopard’s skin. ”

“ As a rule the eggs do not vary much, though sometimes a single egg may be found in which the ground color is pale bluish gray with blotches of deeper ashy gray and a few darker flecks. The great majority of eggs vary in color from greenish or olive green to olive brown and occasionally reddish brown in ground, with blotches or spots of darker brown or olive and a few ashy shell marks. The measurements of 100 eggs average 54.71 by 37.37 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 59.8 by 37.8, 55.3 by 40.7, 48.5 by 37.7, and 55 by 34 millimeters. ”

“ In shape they are subpyriform to ovate pyriform and rest amid the leafy nest lining with the small ends together often so placed that the sitting bird during incubation touches only the larger ends. The shell is not as strong as many shore-bird eggs of the same size but they are not fragile by any means and they have considerable luster. As was true of many of the limicoline eggs found along that Bering Sea coast, there were two general types of ground color—the one, the greenish, that predominated by a ratio of about 15 to 1—and the other was the brownish type. ”

“ The eggs are laid in this mound and they are hatched by the heat of the sun and that produced by the fermentation of the grass, and they are never hatched by the parent birds. The egg is of a pale brown, but always stained by nesting materials. ”

“ When they are ready to deposit, she is forced to place them whether she has mated or not. In case a mate has found her, a small pouch near the end of her abdomen is filled with a fluid that touches each egg in passing and renders it fertile. The eggs differ with species and are placed according to family characteristics. They may be pure white, pearl-coloured, grey, greenish, or yellow. There are round, flat, and oblong eggs. ”

“ The white of the egg consists of two parts, each of which is enveloped in distinct membranes. The outer bag of albumen, next the shell, is quite a thin, watery body, while the next which invests the yolk, is heavy and thick. But few housekeepers who break eggs ever distinguish between the two whites, or know of their existence even.
Each has its appropriate office to fulfil during the process of incubation or hatching; and one acts in the mysterious process as important a part as the other. ”

“ Fig. 9 is a mass of the eggs of the whelk, one of our deep-water shell-fish, the empty shell of which is seldom cast on the Coney Island shore, but the masses of eggs come ashore in large quantities, particularly after storms, when they are broken from their stone anchorages.
Fig. 10 is a string of the egg cases of the periwinkle shell, which is one of the largest shells inhabiting the waters of Coney Island. The eggs are contained in a soft leathery case of a light yellow color, about the size of a two-cent piece, but much thicker. ”