Eggs are very nutritious articles of food. They contain as much oil or
fat and flesh and force-producing matter as butcher’s meat. The white is
not, however, so digestible as the flesh of meat. They enter into the
composition of puddings, cakes, buns, and other forms of diet. They are
also eaten alone, boiled or fried, and are most digestible when least
done.
The egg of the domestic fowl is usually eaten, but those of other birds
are frequently employed as food. The eggs of the woodcock, plover, and
other small birds, are esteemed a luxury. Those of the duck and goose
have a strong flavour, and those of sea-fowl are fishy. The eggs of the
turkey are rich in flavour, whilst those of the guinea-hen have a very
delicate flavour. All birds’ eggs may be eaten with impunity. The eggs
of the crocodile, and other oviparous reptiles, are eaten in some parts
of the world.
In Case 61 is a collection of the Eggs of domestic poultry and some other
birds, together with the analysis of Hen’s Eggs.
* * * * *
The Flesh and Force-producers are most abundant in those plants which
yield the substantive food of man. These plants belong principally to
the group of cereal grasses, as wheat, oats, barley, &c., and leguminous
plants, as peas, beans, lentils, &c. Of these the most important is
wheat. At the western end of the gallery are shown samples of many
cultivated varieties of wheat, oats, barley, rye, and maize, in the
straw, and in grain.
The Flesh and Force-producers exist also in large quantities in milk, and
in the flesh of vertebrate animals, divided into mammals, birds, fishes,
and reptiles.