Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/106

large yield per annum. Plymouth Rocks, eight to the pound, lay one hundred per annum. Houdans, eight to the pound, lay one hundred and fifty per annum; non-sitters. La Flèche, seven to the pound, lay one hundred and thirty per annum; non-sitters. Black Spanish, seven to the pound, lay one hundred and fifty per annum. Dominiques, nine to the pound, lay one hundred and thirty per annum. Game fowl, nine to the pound, lay one hundred and thirty per annum. Crèvecoeurs, seven to the pound, lay one hundred and fifty per annum. Leghorns, nine to the pound, lay from one hundred and fifty to two hundred per annum. Hamburgs, nine to the pound, lay one hundred and seventy per annum. Polish, nine to the pound, lay one hundred and fifty per annum. Bantams, sixteen to the pound, lay sixty per annum. Turkeys, eggs five to the pound, lay from thirty to sixty per annum. Ducks' eggs vary greatly with different species, hut from five to six to the pound, and from fourteen to twenty-eight per annum, according to age and keeping. Geese, four to the pound, lay twenty per annum. Guinea fowls, eleven to the pound, lay sixty per annum. Large eggs have generally a thicker shell than small ones. By comparison with eggs in former times, those of improved breeds of fowls of the present day have gained one third in weight.

Exceptionally large hens' eggs are often met with. Thus, in the journal "Land and Water" for June 16, 1877, a Cochin-China fowl's egg is recorded which weighed one quarter of a pound and measured eight and five eighth inches lengthwise, six and a half inches in circumference. That of a Dorking weighing seven ounces measured seven and a half inches round the middle and nine and a half inches across the ends. Another weighed ten and a half ounces, and measured eight inches round the center and twelve and a half inches across the ends.

In the "Birmingham Mercury" of May 9, 1857:

A half-bred Cochin-China hen belonging to Mr. Campbell, carter, of Great Croft Street, Darlaston, is stated during the past few weeks to have laid eleven extraordinary eggs of an enormous size, each weighing upward of five ounces, and one when just laid weighed not less than seven ounces. On one being broken another perfect egg, of the usual size, was found inside, which led to seven being broken with the same results. Around the one weighing seven ounces (being the tenth egg) a third shell and egg had begun to form. Several of these eggs are whole, and by carefully handling them the motion of the inner eggs may be perceived. Two of the inner eggs are also preserved, and numbers of people have been to see them, and have expressed themselves highly gratified at such an extraordinary phenomenon. The hen is not above the middle size, being about four and a half pounds in weight.

Many eggs are laid naked, dry, and smooth; others are impregnated with a greasy, glutinous substance. The latter are