ON GENERATION. 211 



additional observations have since strengthened this conclusion, 

 that I can scarcely keep from believing that some part at least 

 of the shell is thus produced. 



Nevertheless, I would say with Fabricius : " Let all reasoning 

 be silent when experience gainsays its conclusions/' The too 

 familiar vice of the present age is to obtrude as manifest truths, 

 mere fancies, born of conjecture and superficial reasoning, alto- 

 gether unsupported by the testimony of sense. 



For I have very certainly discovered that the egg still con- 

 tained in the uterus, in these countries at least, is covered with 

 its shell ; although Aristotle and Pliny assert the contrary, and 

 Fabricius thinks that " it is not to be too obstinately gainsaid." 

 In warmer places, perhaps, and where the fowls are stronger, 

 the eggs may be extruded soft, and for the most part without 

 shells. With us this very rarely happens. When I was at Venice 

 in former years, Aromatarius, a learned physician, showed me 

 a small leaf which had grown between the two valves of a peas- 

 cod, whilst with us there is nothing more apparent in these pods 

 than a small point where the germ is about to be produced. 

 So much do a milder climate, a brighter sky, and a softer air, 

 conduce to increase and rapidity of growth. 



EXERCISE THE TWELFTH. 



Of the remaining parts of the egg. 



We have already spoken partially of the place where, the time 

 when, and the manner how the remaining parts of the egg are 

 engendered, and we shall have something more to add when we 

 come to speak of their several uses. 



" The albumen," says Fabricius, 1 " is the ovi albus liquor of 

 Pliny, the ovi candidum of Celsus, the ovi albor of Palladius, 

 the ovi album et albumentum of Apicius, the XEI/KOI/ of the 

 Greeks, the wow XEUKW^O of Aristotle, the opvSoq ya'Xa, or bird's 

 milk of Anaxagoras. This is the cold, sluggish, white fluid of 

 the egg, of different thickness at different places (thinner at the 

 blunt and sharp ends, thicker in other situations,) and also in 



1 Loc. cit. p. 22. 



