ABSTRACT
The infertile egg shows no measurable consumption of oxygen.
Carbon dioxide is liberated from it at a rate which rapidly falls off from the time the egg is laid, and which varies with the temperature at which the egg is kept.
There is still an appreciable output of carbon dioxide (from 0.1 to 0.2 mg. per day per egg) from eggs kept for 100 days at 10°C.
The total amount of carbon dioxide obtained from a fresh egg (about 50 c.c.) appears too great to be accounted for on a basis of simple de-solution from the egg contents; in all probability some of it is actually generated during the storage of the egg, perhaps by the action of an acidic substance on the calcium carbonate of the shell.
There is no evidence from gas exchange for the existence of a respiratory activity, in the infertile egg, which might supply energy for maintaining an osmotic disequilibrium between yolk and white.
