Ancient Authorities. 85 



in Poland, similar attempts had been made. 

 The project, however, from whatever cause, 

 seems in a very few years to have become 

 extinct in France, and has since probably 

 been confined to Egypt, its native soil. 



Didorus Siculus, Aristotle, and other an- 

 cient writers, advert to the Egyptian prac- 

 tice of hatching eggs, and the latter explains 

 the process of performing the same opera- 

 tion by the heat of dung. The ancients, in- 

 deed, were well aware of the practicability 

 of eliciting animal life from the egg, inde- 

 pendently of the incubation of the hen, and 

 Pli?ii/ has recorded the success of Livia, in 

 hatching a chicken in her bosom, an act of 

 patient curiosity which has been paralleled 

 by several French ladies, who have, in the 

 same way, proved themselves the mothers 

 of gold-finches and canary birds. Pli?ii/ 

 says also, sed inventum, ut ova in calido lo- 

 co, impositapaleiSy igne modico foverentur^ 

 homtne versante par iter die ac node., et 

 staluto die illinc irrumpere foetus. In En- 

 glish, it had been discovered in his time, 

 that eggs placed on straw in a moderate 



