which is turned by hand. Should greater speed be required it can easily be fitted for a bow and the handle unscrewed.
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It will be found a great saving of time if, when the hole is drilled in an egg, the membrane around it be extracted with a fine pair of spring pliers. The contents come out much more rapidly, and the shell drains much sooner.[1]
Every egg-collector knows the annoyance and danger of cottonwool, &c., adhering to eggs through their not having drained thoroughly, which is frequently caused by the egg rolling after it has been placed on the blotting-paper pad. To obviate this I have had thin brass tubes of different sizes cut into lengths varying from one-fourth to five-eighths of an inch and bent to an oval. If the egg is placed in this with the hole touching the blotting-paper, the nuisance of its moving is done away with. The rings fit into each other, and so take up very little room.
A small india-rubber syringe possesses great advantages over the old-fashioned "squirt" for injecting water for rinsing, as it can be used with one hand whilst the egg is held in the other, thus lessening the danger of breakage, and enabling the user to keep the exterior of the shell dry—a matter of greater importance than many consider it.
Now that collecting "clutches" is so much in vogue, it is of greater importance than formerly to bring home each "clutch" intact, and to secure this I use round tin boxes, into which five pill-boxes have been glued in a circle, thus forming six compartments. Each egg is wrapped in cotton-wool and placed in a division. Every box is numbered, and particulars of its contents entered in a rough note-book on the spot. Another good plan is
- ↑ There is another advantage in extracting the membrane. If allowed to remain in, it often contracts so much in drying as to cause thin shells to crack.—Ed.
