EGG

(1) in the narrower sense, the female reproductive or germ-cell, which after impregnation or fertilization by a male germ-cell (spermatozoon or sperm) develops into an embryo. (See Ovum.) (2) The term is applied, more broadly, to a more complicated reproductive body that consists of an ovum together with supplementary parts. The egg of a See BRIDGE bird, for example, includes the fertilized and developing ovum olk), nutritive white (albumen), and protective double egg membrane covered by @ porous calcareous shell. The eggs of animals lower than the birds have usually only three parts, viz. the germinal spot or dot, the germinal vesicle, and the vitellus or yolk; the first being contained in the vesicle, and that again in the yolk. The common domestic fowl], the turkey, the pea-hen and the common duck produce the eggs which are commonest in the market. The eggs of the green plover (Vanellus cristatus) are esteemed as a delicacy. The hard roes of fishes are the ovaries, containing innumerable eggs (over nine millions in the cod). The salted hard roes of the sturgeon are known as caviare. A hen’s egg of good size weighs about 1,000 grains, of which the white constitutes 600, the yolk 300, and the shell 100. When the white of an egg is warmed it coagulates to a firm opaque ma . Eggs form an important article in British commerce; the number imported in 1931 amounted to 3,111,024,120, mainly from Ru ia, Denmark, Austria, France and Italy.