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.)
******
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.
*****
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?
*****
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!
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.
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.
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.
Video, or they just placed another egg next to it...
>Honey-dew - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeydew_(secretion)
No sure how much of Wikipedia I can quote here so I’ll just include the first paragraph.
“Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids and some scale insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the aphid. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis.[1] Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew.[2] Honeydew can cause sooty mold — a bane of gardeners — on many ornamental plants. Honeydew is also secreted by certain fungi, particularly ergot.[citation needed]”
Ergot, if memory serves produces a chemical that is very similar to LSD. I recall a book relating a town that consumed moldy rye in their bread resulting in everybody tripping out by accident.
Forgot to include that the Wiki article includes a few lines from Kubla Kahn, the last two being...
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Let me also take time to mention that I am always impressed by the high quality of the wordsmithing that was present back then, or for that matter even in work from a mere century ago. It seems to me that most modern prose is quite mundane in comparison.
Here’s my joke or real story. Many years ago in the pages of the Old Farmer’s Almanac I read an account of a practice from years past that was reputed to increase the amount of blooms on apple trees. In early Spring the arborist and others in his company were to run around the tree three times while smacking it on the trunk with a stick or rolled up bundle of twigs or straw. It was further specified that this be done during a full moon, while naked.
My first thought was something like farmer John sees his neighbor, farmer Jack and his wife romping around, asks what’s going on and this is the answer farmer John came up with off the top of his head to explain away a little fun and games that were intended to be private.
My second thought was to speculate as to just what experimental processes were involved in determining such things as clockwise or anti-clockwise, three times, not two or four, full moon or no moon, naked or clothed.
Imagine my surprise many years later when I read that a new study suggested that trees produce more fruit if their trunks were stimulated mechanically when they were coming out of dormancy in Springtime. No mention of doing things in the buff but it appears the basic concept had a ring of truth.
The huge chook egg weighed 176 grams, more than three times the size of an average egg. ... With 3000 hens in the pen where the astonishing egg was discovered, it will make pinpointing the chicken responsible impossible.
.................
Just look for the one that can’t sit and walks with a limp.