ON GENERATION. 179 



nothing is discovered here except the cluster or heap of ova, of 

 many different sizes, proceeding from the same foundation. 



Now, this foundation or basis is a body sui generis, arising 

 on the spine of the feathered kinds, connected by means of large 

 arteries and veins, and of a loose, porous, and spongy texture, in 

 order that multitudes of ova may be produced from it, and that 

 it may supply tunics to all ; which tunics, when the yelks have 

 grown to their full size, are distended by them, and then the 

 tunics surround the vitelli, in the manner of sacks with nar- 

 rower necks and more capacious bellies, very much like the 

 flasks that are formed by the breath of the glass-blower. 



Fabricius then proceeds : " The yelks, as they proceed from 

 small beginnings, from the size of millet or mustard seeds, and 

 are at first not only extremely small, but colourless, as Aristotle 

 says, so do they increase by degrees, and, according to Aristotle, 

 become first of a paler and then of a deeper yellow, until they 

 have attained to the dimensions familiar to all." I, however, 

 have observed ova vastly smaller than millet seeds, ova which, 

 like papulse or sudamina, or the finest grains of sand, (such as 

 we have indicated as found in the roe of fishes,) almost escaped 

 the powers of sight ; their places, indeed, were only proclaimed 

 by a kind of roughness of the membranes. 



EXERCISE THE FOURTH. 



Of the infundibulum. 



The next succeeding portion of the uterus of the common 

 fowl is called the infundibulum by Fabricius. It forms a kind 

 of funnel or tube, extending downwards from the ovary, (which 

 it everywhere embraces,) and becoming gradually wider, termi- 

 nates in the superior produced portion of the uterus. This in- 

 fundibulum yields a passage to the yelks when they have broken 

 from their foot-stalks in their descent from the ovary into the 

 second uterus (so it is styled by Fabricius). It resembles the 

 tunica vaginalis in the scrotum, and is a most delicate mem- 

 brane, very easily dilatable, fitted to receive the yelks that are 

 daily cast loose, and to transmit them to the uterus mentioned. 



