Why? Part 1

Today I will be examining a question to which I devoted several pages of my dissertation: why did people collect eggs? There's a lot of material here, so the post will be split into two.

I didn't spend a fortnight of all-nighters staring at this view not to mine it for blog material

Systematic egg collecting seems to have grown with the middle classes and the Industrial Revolution, which makes sense. With greater freedom of movement thanks to improvements in transport methods it became much easier to travel to remote collecting areas (or exchange material by mail), and the newly expanded middle classes found themselves with time to devote to their hobbies.

It's important to note, though, that egg hunters weren't all  Some “field men,” such as Denis Kiely, were near-exclusively finders and harvesters of eggs, often selling or giving their finds to others and only maintaining modest collections of their own. Others were “cabinet men,” preferring to acquire their collections through purchase or trade (the scarcity of women in the history of egg collecting will be discussed in another entry). Vivian V.D. Hewitt turned away from personally harvesting eggs, but continued to expand his collection by purchasing through agents, on one occasion handing a fellow collector a signed blank cheque in order to obtain an egg and skin of a great auk. Use of agents was not uncommon; by maintaining envoys in several locations, a collector or dealer was able to receive specimens without ever leaving the comfort of home. The agents might harvest eggs to eat in any case, and would be earning extra for any unusual finds they were able to send back. I found no examples of institutions (as opposed to private individuals) employing agents in Europe, but it appears to have been more commonplace in the United States. During the course of researching my project I found several requests for donations of eggs and skins from various museums, with varying levels of payment promised.

Some day I'd like to find out how many eggs they acquired this way

Some collectors combined their hobby with research, contributing significant understanding to the field of ornithology. Francis Jourdain both personally acquired eggs in the field and accumulated them in his cabinet, and was regarded as a definitive authority on Palearctic birds.

Michael Prynne, mentioned previously on this blog, gave five potential reasons for collecting eggs: financial gain, what he termed collectomania, sport, aesthetic enjoyment and scientific advancement. I adopted this list as a starting point for my research, as I found no other first-hand account for the reasons behind collecting that was quite so exhaustive.

Money

The first motivation Prynne immediately dismissed as not befitting a true collector, being of the belief that money corrupted an otherwise pure pursuit. Those who bought and sold eggs often acted as middlemen, which Prynne found acceptable only in the handling of eggs following the death of a collector. As procurers, however, dealers were often seen as inherently untrustworthy, valuing profit over integrity.

Professional dealing in eggs, while lucrative for some, never progressed into what might be called an industry, largely because of the preference of collectors for dealing with each other. Oological magazines were filled with advertisements for buyers and sellers, whom having exchanged details would then correspond without the need of a middleman. One advisement written in 1920 suggested that “an exchange is, or should be, quite as much an exchange of courtesies as an exchange of specimens” which suggests that collectors preferred their hobby to be a social activity rather than business. Their requirement for accurate records obliged collectors to rely heavily on trust, thus they preferred to build relationships with fellow enthusiasts rather than deal with those who might be more interested in profit than accuracy. Such trust relationships were valued by those who maintained them, not least because they allowed for the exchange of valuable material over extended periods of time and the option to repay “credit” at an undetermined point in the future.



A typical selection from 1886



The Collectomaniac

So money wasn't the primary objective, what about collectomania? Prynne never defined the term precisely, but it covers a lot of ground, from collecting for its own sake to collecting merely to possess. Absent is any sense of practical application: the eggs are not collected to be used (indeed one could say that being collected thwarts their intended purpose). Eggs were like art, they were there to be admired, not to be practical. At the same time, however, he insisted that eggs without a personal connection were worthless. If an egg didn't remind the collector of the joy of collecting it, of the hot summer's day or miserable climb on a cliff face, then it was pointless. To jog memory is arguably a form of utility, and it's worth pointing out that collectors like Hewitt would have disagreed with Prynne, if their substantial purchased collections are any clue.

An important part of collectomania is the notion of completeness, a central facet of which was variation. A complete collection of stamps, for example, is theoretically possible. Difficult, time-comsuming and monumentally expensive, but as Prynne writes, varieties of man-made items are known, or known not to exist: the limits of philately are expansive but delineated and potentially reachable (with the obvious exception of those no longer extant). Natural objects, by contrast, are highly variable: any collector might happen upon something completely singular. Theoretically infinite variety forever leaves open the possibility of discovering something new, rare or unique. To a near-pathologically acquisitive personality this is not disheartening, in fact just the opposite.

The Foucaultian notion of sameness-in-difference states that to be collectable a series of objects must exhibit variety within essential similarity. Different colours of stamps, different inscriptions on medals, different registration numbers on trains, varieties of bus ticket or paperclip, these are all inherently collectable because they are variations on a theme. Eggs too are variations on a theme, and thanks to Linnaean taxonomy they can be neatly classified. Susan Pearce wrote that “collections must have limits” but it might be more apt to suggest that collections must have milestones. Oologists collected by species and so in theory they might reach a point where they possessed an egg of every variety of bird (assuming for a moment that clear speciation is in fact possible). But they also collected by colour, year, location, and a host of other considerations. Eggs of unusual colouration, markings or shape were particularly prized, even from common species. Under such conditions, there would always be a reason to acquire another clutch, and there were those whose collectomania drove them to preoccupation.



Not that I'd know anything about that

This kind of motivation is perhaps one of the most familiar to the public, as it was the single-minded obsessives who came to attention when they kept collecting once it become illegal. People like Colin Watson, who continued to pursue his hobby after multiple arrests and a raid on his home. It was the avarice of men like Watson that gave egg collecting its low reputation today, or indeed when Prynne wrote in 1963:

It is such extremists who add the last straw to the disreptutation now accorded to all oölogists. Fortunately there are comparatively few of them, but these few have turned need into greed; collectomania into kleptomania; possession into obsession. It is little short of a psychosis in these exceptional cases, and, like the drug-addict, the victim is not to be easily thwarted.

Harsh words, and probably written with more than a little bitterness. It's worth pointing out, though, that the collectomaniacs of today are statistically different from the egg collectors from the days of legitimacy. They are typically working class (at least, the ones who get caught) and this slip in demographic suggests that the modern collectors see egg collecting as a path to self-respectability. By emulating a formerly respectable hobby they might become respected themselves. Or perhaps in maintaining control over a collection, by ordering it a they see fit, those who feel powerless might gain some measure of control over their lives or the world.

Looking at collecting is a fascinating subject in itself, and a much bigger one than my dissertation or this blog was set up to handle. Collecting has been characterised as a kind of illness, as consumption, as a form of control freakery, and collectors aren't always the clearest in explaining their own motives. I could write a book (and people have) on motives behind it; egg collecting is simply an exemplar of behaviour that is found all across humanity.

Thanks for reading folks, next time I'll have a report on how things are doing as far as the egg project itself is concerned. Yes, despite graduating, I'm still happily cataloguing away.

These probably won't be of much scientific use

That time I tried to blow an egg

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Do enough reading on a subject and sooner or later you start to wonder what it would be like to have a go (this is also, coincidentally, why I'd like to have a go at breeding dragonflies). Unfortunately I lack the specialised tools to make a proper job of egg-blowing, the drills and pipes of the collectors' heyday were relatively precise instruments and while there are plenty still around, I don't think anyone would appreciate me absconding with them. With that in mind, I had to improvise.



The scattershot approach

To a collector, the final appearance of the egg was paramount, so they generally made every attempt to choose a bland spot to drill without any interesting marking. During the project I saw one or two with holes on an end, but almost all are somewhere on the sides of the egg. I didn't find any sources explaining why drilling at the points was uncommon, but I suspect it is due to the robust shape of most eggs.

For my own effort, none of the eggs were particularly special to look at, so I selected an arbitrary point on the side. Unfortunately my initial attempt didn't work so well. Chemically speaking eggshells are quite rigid; while strong, they tend to shatter and avoiding that is quite tricky. None of the tools on that penknife were suitably deft.

The subtle approach

Counterintuitive it may be, but the serrations on this knife were very handy for scoring a mark for the "drilling." I don't know if scoring the shell was standard practice among the collectors of old, certainly none of the contemporary guides I read mentioned it. That said, some of the eggs in The Hunterian bear some scratches around the drill hole (exit hole? Blowhole?) which would fit the pattern. I marked an X and started twisting the point of the knife in to make an indent.

Oops

Ok, that didn't work so well. Those useful serrations got caught in the shell as I drilled deeper and levered a chunk of it off. Oh well, if at first you don't succeed...

Destroy all evidence that you tried

I tried a number of tools this time, in the process educating myself about the relative toughness of the contents of my flat. Cocktail sticks were too soft, drawing pins too narrow, knives too flat... it was a fun time. Having made the scoring point with the knife, I finally found a winner when I tried a metal skewer.

How did I hold the camera?

Of course I could only get away with using such clunking great tools because chicken eggs are rather large and tough, at least compared to many other kinds. Smaller eggs, like robins' for example, are a great deal thinner and more delicate. Michael Prynne, mentioned in the previous post, claimed to keep a large darning needle on him at all times, just in case he espied a worthy addition to his collection.

During the course of my research, most sources suggested that the one-hole method was relatively new, replacing an older two-hole method from the early 19th century onwards. The two-hole method is fairly obvious, you blow in one hole and the contents are ejected through the other. Unless you blow so hard that the albumen can't escape fast enough, there's very little risk of bursting the shell. But it was seen as primitive and aesthetically displeasing by practitioners of the one-hole method, which came to dominate during the golden age of collecting.

It's worth noting that the one-hole method may be several thousand years older than previously suspected. There is evidence that early humans may have used the one-hole method for emptying ostrich eggs, which would certainly have been practical as the eggs were then used to carry water (see the link at the end of this entry for more).

The hole I made wasn't perfect, the skewer is triangular in section and caught on the edges, but it was roughly the right size and didn't shatter the rest of the shell, which for my second attempt ever I was rather pleased with.

Now, for emptying the egg the contents have to be blended a bit, as the yolk holds together quite strongly and is more than capable of blocking a small hole (this same property makes it easy to extract when making meringues, so I'm not complaining). Where the earliest collectors were satisfied with stiff pieces of grass, I made do with an unfolded paperclip.

Maceration!

Once the contents were well whisked, it was time to actually blow the egg. I know! All this and I haven't even gotten to the good part yet.

I experimented with a number of tools for this as well, as I lacked convenient L-shaped tubes. Emptied ballpoint pens were a non-starter and I didn't have any straws. In the end I just rolled up some paper. It worked rather well!

But there was still a problem: I couldn't muster enough air pressure to force the egg contents out. I choose to believe that this was due to the physical limitations of a paper tube, rather than a comment on the strength of my lungs. Early practitioners of the two-hole method often just blew directly into the egg, which doesn't work particularly well with the one-hole method unless you want a mouthful of yolk. In the end I was forced to do what you are never supposed to do and put the tube inside the egg.

The reason you're not supposed to do this is that if you block the hole then the contents of the egg have nowhere to go. So blowing into the egg increases the pressure on the inside, and without anywhere to release that pressure the shell bursts. I gambled that the uneven hole I made would still allow contents to flow out, and as it happens I was right.

Accidental success is the second best kind of success

The principle behind the one-hole method is that air blown into the egg will rise to the top, forcing the contents down and out of the hole. As long as the hole is below the level of the eggy goo (technical term), it should flow easily. Some collectors held their eggs above bowls of water in case of accidentally dropping them, while one Francis Jourdain (a particularly famous oologist) is said to have held eggs directly above his face when emptying them. As several biographers have noted, Jourdain wore a thick beard. Draw your own conclusions.

So anyway, having hollowed the egg, what did I do next? Well, like any good collector, I washed it.

Inside and out

Eggs have to be washed after blowing, if they aren't then residual contents will putrefy, which not only smells terrible but attracts pests. According to at least one source, washing was also supposed to maintain the egg's colour for longer. Professional collectors (that is, people who aren't me) preferred syringes or, especially in the two-hole method, mouth-to-egg water injection.

Once the egg is washed, it's just a matter of leaving it somewhere where the water can drain out, then treating it with an antiparasitic agent. Back in the day, this would have been camphor, tobacco, mercury compounds, cedar wood, any number of lovely little toxins. The very earliest "modern" collectors of the mid nineteenth century often treated the nests as well, so that the eggs might be stored in their original home (nest collecting, though less common, was also practised). This quickly went out of fashion as the nests tended to collect moisture and damage the eggs.

Some collectors varnished their eggs, which has led me to more than one unfortunately yellowed example in the museum collection. Some examples, such as the great black cormorants below, even seem to have been polished, at least partially. Perhaps this was an attempt to mirror the polishing of seashells, or remove the "chalky" outer layer common to many species? I don't know.

The upper left example is in fact an early form of pokéball

 Since I wasn't planning to keep any of these eggs (the thought crossed my mind, but I don't really have anywhere to keep them), I had no plans to treat them for long term storage. But before I filled them with paint and went trolling for politicians, I wanted to inspect my efforts a bit more closely.

Good to know I'm not the only one cracking up

Well, it could be better. The hole is jagged and unsightly, and even though you can't see them, the cracks made by the skewer show up under the light.

I haven't inspected any of the museum's eggs like this, mostly because I have more pressing tasks but also because eggs are remarkably sensitive to light. According to some sources, all it takes is a few hours of bright sunlight for a delicate pattern to dull (some egg pigments are more volatile than others, however. Chicken eggs are very robust, but many other species do fade quickly in light. Some can even be rubbed off in one's fingers).

I decided to have one more try, if only to make a neater hole and have something to show off properly.

The neatest drilling mark yet!

All for naught

Sadly this was not to be, the third egg broke in much the same way as the first, only it was the skewer that betrayed me instead of the knife.

I learned a lot from this experiment, and my honest opinion is that blowing eggs really isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I know that in parts of the world it's still practiced today, especially for Easter decoration (we always just boiled them), and I wonder what kind of equipment people use. Are there still old egg drills and blowing tubes around, are they sold in shops? In hindsight I should really have looked that up for my report. Ah well. Certainly I think that better equipment would have made the task much easier.

Finally, you might be asking, what did I do with the contents of the eggs? Those who know me know that this is a very silly question.

Natural history is delicious

Anyway, I have much more to talk about and a lot to catch up on, so hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon.

The information on ostrich eggs came from the University of Cambridge and I thoroughly recommend watching the video on their research here. It's absolutely fascinating.

A short book review

I did a lot of reading for this project, and some of it was remarkably interesting for reasons quite other than expected. One in particular which was recommended to me is Egg-shells by one Michael Prynne. The book is ostensibly on the repair of eggs, but contains a great deal of the author's other thoughts on maintaining bird populations, when collecting eggs is and is not permissible (something of a moot point as he was writing in 1963, just under a decade since collection became illegal in the UK), the methods by which eggs may be collected and the reasons for same, plus plentiful anecdotes describing his experiences as an active collector. With the recommendation came the caveat that towards the end of the book the author airs some decidedly unpalatable views on eugenics, and indeed this is the case. For a time I referred to the book rather flippantly for that reason, but in taking the time to read through it properly, I was pleasantly reminded that history is populated by characters, not caricatures.

Prynne was a more interesting and nuanced person than I expected. Many of his opinions range from questionable to objectionable (he is as sexist as one might expect) to downright shocking (he is a proponent of human sterilisation), but at the same time he is generally careful to provide counterpoints to most of the arguments he makes. His presentation is often entertaining, though mostly when talking about eggs, and rarely does he stray into dogmatism.

I haven't done any further research on Prynne, but by his own account he was a pilot in WWI and an officer for most of his working life. He gives an account of some time after the war, when he was placed in charge of a group of African soldiers. One might expect, knowing what we do of him, that he might make an unkind judge of his charges, but, to my unpracticed eye at least, his recounting of the occasion is surprisingly low in bigotry. In fact he appears ashamed of his initial prejudice and being unable to tell the soldiers apart, and frankly admits to his ignorance in the matter, going on to describe how in the following months he learned otherwise. The whole story was intended to illustrate an advisement on eggs, but that's beside the point.

The point is not to judge Prynne or his opinions, that's far beyond the scope of this blog. The point is that he was possessed of more than two dimensions, and makes a fine illustration of one of the reasons I enjoy studying history. Prynne is very much a product of his time, everything from his phrasing ("great socking beam") to his opinions to his recounted actions, and as a case study he's fascinating, perhaps especially when one disagrees with him. He has some charming anecdotes about water voles and nightingales. He gets angry when recounting an occasion when an eagle was shot and tempers his tirade against housecats by admitting that they provide valuable companionship for their owners. While obviously chafing at the new laws he even admits that his hobby needs "reasonable control." In fact it's a repeated mantra throughout the book that egg collectors themselves, while a maligned and much-underappreciated group in his view, are themselves partly responsible for the straits they found themselves in. Or at least, the more unscrupulous ones are. He was firmly of the belief that well-regulated egg collecting would be substantially less harmful to birds than modern farming or housecats, in which I have to admit he probably had a point, though it's worth pointing out that 1. housecats rarely snack on falcon eggs and 2. the pesticides Prynne condemned were arsenic compounds and killed everything. We've come a long way since then.
I enjoy the study of history (especially through museums) because it enables me to get closer to people, animals, cultures and modes of thought vastly removed from what I am familiar with. I suspect that if I were ever to have met him, I would probably not have liked Michael Prynne very much. But that just made him more interesting.