EGERTON, Hugh Edward, English his torian: b. 19 April 1855. He was educated at Rugby and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1885 he was assistant private secretary to the Hon. E. Stanhope, M.P., and from 1886 to 1906 he was a member of the managing committee of the Emigrants' Information Office. In 1905 he was appointed Beit professor of colonial his tory at Oxford. His publications include 'A Short History of British Colonial Policy' (1897; 4th ed., 1913) ; 'Sir Stamford Raffles' (1900) ; 'Origin and Growth of the English Colonies' (1902) • 'Canada under British Rule) (1908) ; 'Canadian Constitutional Develop ment,' with W. L. Grant (1907) ; 'Federations and Unions Within the British Empire' (1911); an edition of 'Sir W. Molesworth's Speeches' (1903), and of the 'Royal Commission on Loyalists' Claims 1783-85' (1915). He con tributed to Palgrave's 'Dictionary of Political Economy,' Poole's 'Historical Atlas of Modern Europe,' (Cambridge Modern History' (Vols. IV and IX), 'The Oxford Survey of the Brit ish Empire,' 'The American Cyclopmdia of Government,' English Historical Review and other publications.
EGG, Augustus Leopold, English genre painter: b. London, 2 May 1816; d. Algiers, Algeria, 26 March 1863. He became a con tributor to the Academy exhibition in 1838 and was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1860. He painted a great number of pictures illustrative of humorous scenes from Shakes peare, Le Sage and Walter Scott.
EGG. The fundamental cell, technically called the ovum, from which each individual living animal of every species is developed. The egg is the product exclusively of the female organism. It may or may not be developed into another individual being, but the potency of such development is inherent in the egg. It is not to be understood, however, that a single egg may develop into but one individual. In many known instances the single egg divides and subdivides before it reaches the stage of de veloping the individual, so as to produce from 8 to 16 individuals — as in Aurelia; or even 32 individuals — as in varieties of Natita. Seg mentation previous to individual development has been observed also in the frog, the rabbit, the guinea pig, the dog and the deer, as well as in some birds, reptiles, fishes and lower animals.
So far as minute observation goes all eggs of every species are alike in structure and com posed of the same primary elements, and at the beginning develop by the same processes of growth. There comes a time, however, in this progressive growth when each egg assumes a character peculiar to the species to which it belongs in the scheme of animated nature. The egg-cell has a constant form of structure.
There is an outer sac of cell wall containing a spongy network, filled with a more or less trans parent fluid, in which is suspended an interior sac known as the nucleus,. filled with a different network and a clearer fluid, and within this the germinal "dot" or ((spot') called the nucleus. As the purpose of this article is the discussion of the production of the egg the reader is re ferred to the article EMBRYOLOGY for the con sideration of the processes by which the egg is developed into the specific animal.
Animals in which the egg passes out of the body before it is hatched, that is, before the maturity and escape of the embryo, are said to "lay eggs," or to be "oviparous)); those in which the egg remains inside the body to hatch are called "ovoviviparous)); those whose eggs are retained in connection with the parent by means of a placenta and an umbilical cord, so that the young are brought forth alive, are called "vi viparous." These distinctions, and especially the first two, are of secondary importance, and in some cases it is difficult to classify an animal according to them; or varying conditions may lead to change in the same species or individual at different times. In practically all the marn malia the egg after being produced by the ovary attaches itself to the body of the mother and is developed directly by the vital processes of her system. The only exceptions are a few lowly mammals (the Monotremes, q.v.). All birds and most other animals slay" their eggs. The ovoviviparous ones are to be found chiefly among reptiles and fishes. The production of eggs by an individual female varies within the limits (so far as known) of one at a time, as in the human race; the horse, cow and many other species of animal; the penguins and many other seabirds; to the 9,000,000 laid by the cod and 14,000,000 laid by tie turbot. Science has offered an explanation of this great disparity in egg production by advancing the theory that as the object of the egg is the perpetuation of the species the number of eggs produced corre sponds to the natural danger of destruction of either the eggs or the young in the particular environment of each species. This theory seems well established by the observed facts, but it is evident that nature in so providing for the continuance of all her living creatures failed to take into account the depredations of man. It is easy to mention a dozen species which have suffered complete extinction within his toric time because their reproductive functions were not gauged to make good the wholesale nest robbing and slaughter perpetrated by the human species.