Posted on 03/06/2018 10:02:43 AM PST by mairdie
Apparently not.
(side note: just signed a release for the Night Before Christmas trial from a few years ago, which resulted in Troy declaring Henry Livingston Day. They've got a literary manager and are looking to turn it into a stage play.)
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Messrs. EDITORS,
AS I look upon your Repository to be one of those archives which will hand down to the generations to be, the discoveries, observations, and transactions of the present, I send you the following, perhaps very unimportant, fact; to be either remembered or not remembered as the chance may be.
About a month ago, one of my little people brought me a diminutive egg found in a hen's nest among others of the common size: it was not larger than that of a tame pigeon, but had a shell as hardy and in every respect similar to common hen's eggs. I broke it, and to my surprize found it contain, instead of a yolk, another little egg floating in a liquid resembling the white of common eggs, but rather thinner. It was about as large as a middle sized bullet -- was exceeding white -- and had a shell more hard and brittle than the eggs of small birds. Upon breaking it, I observed it full of a thin fluid, and in place of a yolk, a whitish opake substance that appeared likely to produce still another egg.
It is by no means uncommon to find in hen's nests very small eggs, especially in autumn, when they generally cease to lay: but whether they ever produce yolks, or, as in this instance, complete embryo eggs, I have neither heard or observed.
Nov. 16, 1791. R.
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Which now makes me question his New York Magazine article on the Honey Dew.
Can anyone tell me if this is one of his joke articles or has some miniscule element of reality to it?
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IF all the phenomena of nature were faithfully registered, besides the satisfaction resulting to the public from novel relations, natural history would receive important additions.
On the 18th day of the last month, I was surveying in the woods about a mile west from Hudson's river, and eighty miles north of the city of New-York. At noon, the sky being perfectly clear, and the sun shining hot, I remarked that the whole forest glistened in a manner not less uncommon than beautiful.
I at first imagined it occasioned by either rain or dew, till, upon a moment's reflection, I found it could not be the former, as there was not a cloud to be seen, not the latter, as it must long before have disappeared in a day so warm and serene. Some of the company declared they had observed similar appearances before, and called it honey-dew. Every green leaf on the trees, as well as those that were dry under our feet, were covered with a substance perfectly transparent, and in taste not inferior to dissolved sugar-candy. We could not refrain continually drawing the foliage between our lips to taste a syrup that fresh from heaven.
The preceding night had been clear and still, and a small southern breeze blew all morning. It is probably that this modern manna would have been discernable by the taste in the morning, but it was not noticed till the heat of the meridian sun inspissated and gave it the appearance of an elegant varnish.
I have seen accounts of this phenomenon in the Connecticut newspapers, which determine its extension above an hundred miles -- perhaps it has covered a considerable part of North America. When it is considered that every leaf of every tree, and each blade of grass upon the thousand hills of an extensive country was perfectly candied over with the purest sugar, palpable to the touch, visible to the eye, and poignant upon the palate, the quantity must have been prodigious.
R. June, 1791.
Russian NESTED eggs?
Or, is this all a huge EGGageration? Ha-ha!
Had hens for a couple years.
Saw some most unusually misshapen eggs, and found one that was slightly larger than an Easter Robin’s egg candy. One almost always produced double-yolk eggs and died young.
One of their chickens has a bad case of roids. Yikes. Ouch.
Eggz-actly!
PING
It’s Australia! Anything can happen.
With 3000 hens in the pen where the astonishing egg was discovered, it will make pinpointing the chicken responsible impossible.
No it won’t. One of them chickens is walking funny.
We used to ice skate on a small pond with willow trees on one side. In late winter after a couple of warmer days I remember picking a couple of icicles off of low-hanging twigs to quench my thirst. I was surprised to find the icicles sweet tasting. I assume the sap had been rising.
Isn’t it ALWAYS the Russians?...
When working in a chicken hatchery we often saw cull eggs that had another whole egg inside them, shell and all.
When you work with a million eggs a month you see lots of weird things.
Wow. Just completely and absolutely, Wow! I guarantee I ALWAYS took this as a joke article.
So it was the egg that came first!!!
Aphid infestations produce honey-dew.... it’s why ants treat aphids like cherished dairy cows...protecting them and grooming them and moving them from plant to plant if they must.
If the aphids excrete it aphid whizz is full of plant sugars] when no ants are around, as when it is chilly, it just accumulates below the aphid colony. Aphid colonies can be quite large when there are no ladybugs and ladybug larvae around to prey on them.
When aphids whizz on the orange trees here, the sugary excretion on the leaves and fruit in our heat and humidity will mold and turn black, making the trees look rather ugly, but it washes off.
I have a bridge for sale.
And I’d buy it in a heartbeat if I had the funds, I’m sure. Does that mean you believe or DON’T believe the honeydew story?
Video, or they just placed another egg next to it...
Video at the link of the egg being opened.
Maybe an exaggeration of a somewhat lesser but memorable experience. A few sweet drops expanded into a sugar coated forest. Yeah, like we used to boil the icicles down to willow syrup...
;^)
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