202 ON GENERATION. 



fishes and frogs, when extruded and laid in the water provide 

 and surround themselves with albumen, or as beans, vetches, 

 and other seeds and grains swell when moistened, and thence 

 supply nourishment to the germs that spring from them, so, 

 from the folds of the uterus that have been described, as from 

 an udder, or uterine placenta, an albuminous fluid exudes, 

 which the vitellus, in virtue of its inherent vegetative heat and 

 faculty, attracts and digests into the surrounding white. There 

 is, indeed, an abundance of fluid having the taste of albumen, 

 contained in the cavity of the uterus and entangled between the 

 folds that cover its interior. In this way does the yelk, 

 descending by degrees, become surrounded with albumen, until 

 at last, having in the extreme part of the uterus acquired a 

 covering of firmer membranes and a harder shell, it is perfected 

 and rendered fit for extrusion. 



EXERCISE THE TENTH. 



Of the increase and nutrition of the egy. 



Let us hear Fabricius on these topics. He says : " As the 

 action of the stomach is to prepare the chyle, and that of 

 the testes to secrete the seminal fluid, (because in the stomach 

 chyle is discovered, and in the testes semen,) so we declare 

 the act of the uterus in birds to be the production of eggs, 

 because eggs are found there. But this, as it appears, is not 

 the only action of uteri; to it must be added the increase of the 

 egg, which succeeds immediately upon its production, and which 

 proceeds until it is perfected and attains its due size. For a 

 fowl does not naturally lay an egg until it is perfect and has 

 attained to its proper dimensions. The office of the uterus is, 

 therefore, the growth as well as the generation of the egg; but 

 growth implies and includes the idea of nutrition ; and, as 

 all generation is the act of two principles, one the agent, 

 another the matter, the agent in the production of eggs is 

 nothing else than the organs or instruments indicated, viz., the 

 compound uterus; and the matter nothing but the blood." 



We, studious of brevity, and shunning all controversy, as in 



