SECT. 2] TO THE RENAISSANCE 113 



the nineteenth century by Yarrell and Rose. The chick was perfect 

 in form, according to him, on the tenth day. 



The peculiarity of Aldrovandus lies in the fact that he incorporated 

 so many elements into one book, and was able to produce a collection 

 of chapters in which good scientific observation sat at the closest 

 quarters with literary allusion and semi-theological homily. So well- 

 proportioned a mixture as the Ornithologia is not often found. As a 

 final instance three consecutive paragraphs may be mentioned, in 

 the first of which he discusses Plutarch's arid problem about the 

 priority of egg or hen, next he makes some very reasonable remarks 

 about teratology, suggesting that monsters come from yolks which are 

 physico-chemically abnormal in some way, while in the third he 

 expresses strong scepticism concerning the tale that the basilisk is 

 sometimes hatched out from a hen's egg — ''Ego ne jurantibus quidem 

 crediderim'\ he says. This last notion is found in the fourteenth- 

 century poem of Prudentius alluded to above, and appears again in 

 the Miscellaneous Exercitations of Caspar Bartholinus the younger, 

 whose second chapter is devoted to showing "That the basilisk 

 hatcheth not from the egg of the hen", a conclusion which has been 

 amply confirmed in the light of subsequent experience. Bartholinus 

 gives a bibliography of this curious legend. 



Aldrovandus and his disciple Volcher Coiter the Frisian, as he 

 described himself, were alike in not suffering from the prevailing 

 vice of the age, verbosity. Colter's Externarum et Internarum princi- 

 palium humajii corporis partium tabulae et exercitationes, which appeared 

 at Nuremberg in 1573 — a beautifully printed book — contained a 

 brief section entitled De ovorum gallinaceorum generationis primo exordio 

 progressuque et pulli gallinacei creationis ordine. His Latin style betrays 

 his German origin, for the constructions are very Teutonic, although 

 the meaning is always perfectly clear. Coiter says, "In the year 

 1564 in the month of May at Bologna, being instigated by that 

 excellent professor of philosophy outstanding in varied sciences and 

 arts. Doctor Ulysses Aldrovandus, and by other doctors and students, 

 I ordered 2 broody fowls to be brought and under each of them 

 I caused 23 eggs to be placed, and in the company of these persons 

 I opened one every day so that we could see firstly the origin of 

 the veins and secondly what organ is first formed in the animal". 

 What follows is practically a repetition of the facts available in 

 Aristotle, but described with much greater clearness than either 



