ON GENERATION. 201 



very fairly be compared with the intestines and the mesentery." 

 For, as the intestine is bound down by the mesentery, so is this 

 portion of the uterus attached to the spinal column by an ob- 

 long membranous process ; lest by being too loose, and getting 

 twisted, the passage of the yelks should be interfered with, in- 

 stead of having a free and open transit afforded them as at 

 present. The mesometrium also transmits numerous blood- 

 vessels surcharged with blood, to each of the folds of the uterus. 

 In its origin, substance, structure, use, and office, this part is 

 therefore analogous to the mesentery. Moreover, from the 

 fundus of the uterus lengthwise, and extending even to the 

 infundibulum, there is a ligament bearing some resemblance 

 to a tape-worm, similar to that which we notice in the upper 

 part of the colon. It is as if a certain portion or stripe of 

 the external tunic had been condensed and shortened in such 

 a manner that the rest of the process is thrown into folds and 

 cells : were you to draw a thread through a piece of intestine 

 taken out of the body, and to tie this thread firmly on one side, 

 you would cause the other side of the bowel to pucker up into 

 wrinkles and cells ; [even so is it with the uterus of the fowl.] 

 This then, in brief, is the structure of the uterus in the fowl 

 that is laying eggs : fleshy, large, extensible both longitudinally 

 and transversely, tortuous or winding in spirals and convolu- 

 tions from the cloaca upwards, in the line of the vertebral 

 column, and continued into the infundibulum. 



EXERCISE THE NINTH. 



Of the extrusion of the egg, or parturition of the fowl, in general. 



The yelk, although only a minute speck in the ovary, gaining 

 by degrees in depth of colour and increasing in size, gradually 

 acquires the dimensions and characters that distinguish it at 

 last. Cast loose from the cluster, it descends by the infun- 

 dibulum, and, transmitted through the spirals and cells of the 

 processus uteri, it becomes surrounded with albumen ; and this, 

 without in any place adhering to the uterus (as was rightly 

 observed by Fabricius in opposition to Aristotle), or growing by 

 means of any system of umbilical vessels ; but as the eggs of 



