of one which Murtagh, in his careless Hibernian way,
accidentally broke--and which were caught in a tin pannikin that held as
much as a good-sized breakfast cup--filled the pannikin to its brim.

It was quite a seasonable supply. These fine eggs proved not inferior
to those of the common hen; indeed they were thought superior, and in
flavour more like the eggs of a guinea-fowl or turkey.

About a dozen of them were cooked for breakfast, and in more ways than
one. Some were boiled, one of the half shells of the same Singapore
oyster serving for a saucepan; while in the other, used as a frying-pan,
an immense omelette was frittered to perfection. It was quite a change
from the fruit diet of the durion, reversing our present as well as the
old Roman fashion of eating, though not contrary to the custom of some
modern nations--the Spaniards, for example. Instead of being _ab ovo ad
malum_, it was _ab malo ad ovum_. [Note 2.]

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Note 1. The Banshee, or Benshie, sometimes called the Shrieking Woman,
is an imaginary being, supposed by the Irish to predict, by her shrieks
and wails, the death of some member in the family over which she
exercises a kind of supervision. To this fable Moore alludes in one of
his songs--

"How oft has the Benshee cried."

Note 2. The Romans began their noonday meal with eggs, and ended with a
dessert; _ab ovo ad malum_.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE LANOONS.

Certainly the most nutritious of all things eatable or drinkable is the
substance, or fluid, called milk. It becomes blood almost immediately,
and then flesh, or muscle, as was designed by the Creator. Hence it is
the first food given to all animated creatures--not alone to the
_mammalia_, but to the oviparous animals--even to the infantile forms of
the vegetable itself. To the first it is presented in the form of
simple milk, or "lacteal fluid;" to the second in the "white" of the
egg; while the young tree or plant, springing from its embryo, finds it
in the farina, or succulent matter, with which it is surrounded, and in
which it has hitherto lain embedded and apparently lifeless, till the
nursing sun calls it into a growing existence. It is albumen, gluten,
and other substances combined, all existing in the udder, in the
egg-shell, in the seed, root, or fruit; from which springs the progeny,
whether it be man or beast, flying bird or swimming fish, cr