EGG-LORE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18453, 14 January 1922, Page 10

EGG-LORE.

By Bassett Digbt, F.R.G.S., F.Am.G.S. in Chambers’s Magazine. Ejgg-eating is rather a . hundrum, if costly, affair with most of us. It is limited mainly to the perfunctory absorption of the gift of the common barnyard hen, with one eye on the morning paper and the other on the clock. But meanwhile, out in the big sunny world across the seas, pleasant people with no trains to catch, and as little on their minds as on their body, are . enjoying the eggs of lizards and locusts, ostriches and crocodiles, and other,. bizarre creatures. The biggest eggs in the world, those of the ostrich, are eaten in Australia and South Africa. • At the other end of the scale, in Mexico, people eat the tiny eggs of flies. It is quite a task to tackle an ostrich egg, ana hard in the appetite subsequently, for the contents are equal in bulk to 20. hen eggs. As an ostrich nest will contain more than a dozen eggs before any begin to become unfit for table, a considerable vista of omelettes is ahead of the camping-party that happens across one. When you And an ostrich nest, you have got to take away at once all the eggs you want, as when the bird returns she smashes the lot, if she finds any missing. I am assured, moreover, by a Rhodesian who once took what he wanted from the nest of an escaped ostrich, that it is highly advisable, to get a good start before 'the ’bird returns to, size up the; situation. A Hottentot, discovering a clutch of- ostrich eggs, makes use of his shirt, 'with the arms tied into, knots, to carry them away. . . ■ It is a longish matter boiling, or attempting to boil, an ostrich egg. The South African method of dealing with it is to stand' it up in a heap of hot ashes, smash a little hole at the top end, and through it to stir, and stir, and keep stirring, with a twig, until the contents solidify. The beautiful dark-green eggs of the emu are considered rather coarse in flavour. tn some ofSoutti Sea isles And in;