From the translucent golden eggs of the Tibetan bearded vulture to those of the British guillemot with their Jackson Pollock-like splashes, German ornithologist Max Schönwetter (1874-1961) collected them all. He devoted his life to oology, the study of birds' eggs. But while Schönwetter created order in his world of eggs, chaos broke out in the world around him on the eve of the Second World War.