Water 74.0 parts. Albumen 14.0 parts. Oil or fat 10.5 parts. Mineral Salts 1.5 parts. ------ 100 The whole usually weighs about a thousand grains, of which the shell makes a tenth part. The chick-making materials, exclusive of water, form only one-quarter of the weight of the liquid contents, or only about two hundred grains. This seems to be a small beginning upon which to rear a full-grown rooster. The bulk or quantity as found in hens' eggs, and indeed in the eggs of all birds, is wonderfully disproportionate to the size of the mother bird. The laying of eggs must be regarded as a particularly exhausting process, and yet fowls will keep it up for a long time and not lose much in flesh. We have known a hen of the game variety which has laid twenty-two eggs in twenty-two consecutive days, and they average in weight one thousand grains each. This gives in amount twenty-two thousand grains, or rather more than three pounds avoirdupois, of which about two and a quarter pounds is water. The dozen or more ounces of rich, nutritive material, parted with in twenty-two days, would seem to be a prodigious draught upon the small physical structure of the bird, but there were no indications of exhaustion. Whilst it is true that the quickening of an egg which results in the birth of a chick, is no more marvellous a process or result than the embryotic development of any creature endowed with the mysterious principle of life, yet there are some circumstances connected with it which make it a matter of greater perplexity and wonder. Here is an oval white body consisting of a calcareous shell, within which there are some semi-fluid substances, consisting mainly of albumen and water, without any signs of life. In fact, there is no life; it is simply a mass of dead, inanimate matter. Talk as much as we will about the germinal principles involved in the structure of the egg, we are totally unable to recognize it, or form any conception of its nature. There is no evidence of the presence of any germ or principle of life whatever. The egg left to itself decays like other organized substances, but with our assistance in simply transferring it to a place where the temperature is in a certain uniform condition, in a few weeks, the albumen, water, oil and mineral salts are transferred into a living chick, which thrusts its little beak through the shell, and in ten minutes is running about, almost able to take care of itself.