Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1897 — Shap a of Eggs. [ARTICLE]

Shap a of Eggs.

The eggs of the owl family are almost spherical, and are thus easily moved by the parent bird in her desire to secure an equal amount of warmth to each. As she nests in a hole, there is no fear whatever of any of her clutch rolling away and being smashed. On the other hand, the guillemot, which nests, or rather lays, her eggs on flat, bare rocks in high, exposed latitudes, lays a single egg so elongated and curiously shaped that when stirred by a violent gust of wind or the bird’s sudden flight, it does not roil away, but simply spins around upon its own axis like a top. In the case of plovers, snipes and other birds that lay four large eggs, the eggs narrow so rapidly toward the smaller end that four of them in a nest practically form a square, thus enabling the bird to eover them the more effectually. According to Dr. Nicolsk.v, the variety in shape In eggs Is due simply to the effects of the law of gravity. Every egg which is not yet covered with a solid shell deviates from the spherical form and lengthens by the effect of the pressure by the sides of the ovary.