136 EMBRYOLOGY IN THE SEVENTEENTH [pt. 11 



seemed to many of doubt; for at the blunter end it is not discovered 

 after the chicken is formed, by this also the white and the yelk are 

 continued whereby it may conveniently receive its nutriment from 

 them both.. . .But these at last and how in the Cicatricula or little 

 pale circle formation first beginneth, how the Grando or tredle, are 

 but the poles and establishing particles of the tender membrans 

 firmly conserving the floating parts in their proper places, with many 

 observables, that ocular Philosopher and singular discloser of truth, 

 Dr Harvey hath discovered, in that excellent discourse of generation, 

 so strongly erected upon the two great pillars of truth, Experience, 

 and Reason. 



"That the sex is discernable from the figure of eggs, or that cocks 

 or hens proceed from long or round ones, experiment will easily 

 frustrate.. . .Why the hen hatcheth not the egg in her belly? Why 

 the egg is thinner at one extream? Why there is some cavity or 

 emptiness at the blunter end? Why we open them at that part? 

 Why the greater end is first excluded [cf p. 233]? Why some eggs 

 are all red, as the Kestrils, some only red at one end, as those of 

 kites and buzzards? Why some eggs are not oval but round, as 

 those of fishes ? etc. are problems whose decisions would too much 

 enlarge this discourse." And elsewhere, "That (saith Aristotle) which 

 is not watery and improlifical will not conglaciate; which perhaps 

 must not be taken strictly, but in the germ and spirited particles; 

 for Eggs, I observe, will freeze, in the albuginous part thereof". 

 Again, "They who hold that the egg was before the bird, prevent 

 this doubt in many other animals, which also extendeth unto them; 

 for birds are nourished by umbilical vessels and the navel is manifest 

 sometimes a day or two after exclusion.. . .The same is made out 

 in the eggs of snakes, and is not improbable in the generation of 

 Porwiggles or Tadpoles, and may also be true in some vermiparous 

 exclusions, although (as we have observed in the daily progress of 

 some) the whole Magot is little enough to make a fly without any 

 part remaining. . . . The vitreous or glassie flegm of white of egg will 

 thus extinguish a coal." 



These citations show Sir Thomas to have been more than simply 

 the supreme artist in English prose which is his common title to 

 remembrance. In picking his way carefully among the doubtful 

 points and difficult problems which previous embryologists had pro- 

 pounded but not answered, he usually managed to give the right 



