THE NEW STUDY OF BIRDS 



can you find on the body; are they arranged hit 

 or miss, any old way, or, whatever the answer. 

 Why? 



Finally, in the depths of winter, when birds are 

 scarce, purchase a dozen hen's eggs, and rig up 

 some kind of an incubator — any place where you 

 can keep the temperature at about 103°. Then 

 get a beginner's book on embryology and every 

 other day, or at first, every few hours, chip open a 

 carefully buttressed egg. If a New World was 

 adumbrated by Columbus' balanced egg, perhaps 

 a new sphere of interest may emanate from yours. 

 Look within the shell with as much awe as you feel 

 when you gaze up at the stars, or when you enter 

 holy ground, whether Buddhist, Mohammedan 

 or Christian. For in the latter case you are con- 

 cerned with centuries of human efforts at sincerity, 

 the stars lead your eyes through billions of miles 

 of space, and the embryo in the hen's egg opens a 

 vista to millions of years in the past. 



When, in the midst of the tiny coagulation, you 

 can detect the primitive streak, you have seen one 

 of the real wonders of the world — a structure which 

 links birds, animals, man himself, with the lowliest 

 of jellyfish. Then, day by day, watch the new 

 characters develop — the increase of segments from 

 the first to the thirty-sixth, the great elliptical 

 eyes, and the third Cyclopean eye. So strange is 

 the embryo in shape that it is difficult to consider 

 it as a living thing until suddenly one day the 

 palpitating heart is discovered, and we know 



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