"Yes! and he faintly understands, poor Mr. Toots, that they are saying something of a time when he was sensible of being brighter and not addle-brained..."

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Definition: \Ad"dle\, n. [OE. adel, AS. adela, mud.]
1. Liquid filth; mire. [Obs.]

2. Lees; dregs. [Prov. Eng.] --Wright.


\Ad"dle\, a.
Having lost the power of development, and become rotten, as
eggs; putrid. Hence: Unfruitful or confused, as brains;
muddled. --Dryden.


\Ad"dle\, v. t. & i. [imp. & p. p. {Addled}; p. pr. & vb.
n. {Addling}.]
To make addle; to grow addle; to muddle; as, he addled his
brain. ``Their eggs were addled.'' --Cowper.


\Ad"dle\, v. t. & i. [OE. adlen, adilen, to gain, acquire;
prob. fr. Icel. ["o][eth]lask to acquire property, akin to
o[eth]al property. Cf. {Allodial}.]
1. To earn by labor. [Prov. Eng.] --Forby.

2. To thrive or grow; to ripen. [Prov. Eng.]

Kill ivy, else tree will addle no more. --Tusser.

Most common usage I have seen refers to eggs that have been shaken, so that the germinating layer has been disrupted, and the egg cannot produce a chick. As a figure of speech, someone whose mental processes have become jumbled, is said to have an addled brain.

Looking at the word "addle" again, and the statement that rough handling of an egg can prevent an embryo from forming, I was remided of seeing a mother duck each day carefully turning over the eggs she was hatching . Marvelous that it could be pregrammed into her to protect the embryos from undesirable effects of always being in one position.
Edit: Hey, WW: a prof right near you has a URL about the white vs red acorns. Very interesting!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/tv/science_4.shtml

And there go those little gray squirrels eating those white oak acorns as fast as they can while saving the red oak ones for the winter...

REally. It is frigging amazing what animals know to do by instinct. I seem to have so very little.

Dear WW: I wonder what enables squirrels to eat acorns,which humans cannot, without first eluting horrid acid from them first. I also wonder what the difference is between the two kinds of acorns that determines squirrels using them differently.

Found some answers to your questions, Dr.Bill. Have pasted some of them below; the link is at the bottom.

> The main source of energy found in acorns is fat. Red oak acorns are 18% to 25% fat. White oak acorns are only 5% to 10% fat.

> Acorns contain a toxic substance called tannin; it is bitter tasting and makes it hard for the squirrel to digest its food. Just like fat content, red and white oak acorns contain different amounts of tannin. Red oaks acorns are 6-10% tannin. White oak acorns are only less than 2% tannin.

> All acorns only fall from the trees to the ground in autumn. Squirrels have to hide acorns away for the winter so they will have something to eat when spring comes. Red oak acorns don't sprout until spring, but white oak acorns sprout in the autumn, soon after they have fallen from the tree.

> The seeds inside acorns are sometimes affected by insect infestation. Many acorns become infested with insect larvae, particularly weevils of the genus Curculio. These larvae contain high amounts of protein. By eating the acorn squirrels get the energy inside the acorn and the bonus protein from eating the larvae.

> Oaks need outside forces, including squirrels, to carry the acorns to other parts of the forest. Sometimes after a squirrel has buried an acorn in a different part of the forest, the squirrel will forget to go back and eat it. The acorn is then left in the ground to sprout into a beautiful new oak tree. Certainly, the oak trees need the squirrels for their survival -- But the squirrels need the oak trees just as much! >

Thanks to both of you, WW and wwh, for making me search. It was good fun!

http://www.units.muohio.edu/dragonfl y/ita/index.htmlx

maahey, you told the story so much more thoroughly than did David Attenborough. He simply noted that the white oak acorn would germinate almost immediately and that the squirrels simply ate them right away--an after-effect of millions of years of squirrel experience. [tsuwm, what is the adjective for 'squirrel'?]

But the red oak acorns wouldn't germinate till spring, thereby storing away for a long period of time.

He also noted that in bumper crop years--those in which we see a flood of white oak acorns--the squirrels, knowing a good thing when they saw it, would actually bite off the germinating end of the white oak acorns and store them along with the red oak acorns, all the while eating the bounty of white oak acorns, too.

I am frigging amazed by all of this.

Dear WW: here is a URL about it, from a prof not far from you. I didn't know that the squirrels bite the gerninating end off acorns, so that nutrients aren't used up before squirrel eats them. I guess that explains why their burying acorns doesn't bring up zillions of oak trees.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/tv/science_4.shtml

In reply to:

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[tsuwm, what is the adjective for 'squirrel'?]

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A non-tsuwmian (so that now you know the adj. for tsuwm) answer would be squirrely.

Bingley

>tsuwm, what is the adjective for 'squirrel'?

I thought I answered this... must have been in a parallel universe. in any event, it's sciurine or sciuroid.

You did answer 'this' in a parallel universe, but you didn't include sciuroid in t'other.