ON GENERATION. 217 



mained, in order that I might better distinguish the position of 

 the chick : I found it lying, as it were, within a mould of the 

 albumen, and the yelk possessed the same agreeable flavour 

 and sweetness as that of the new-laid egg, boiled to the same 

 degree of hardness. The yelk taken from the ovarium of a 

 live fowl, and eaten immediately, tastes much sweeter raw than 

 boiled. 



Eggs also differ from one another in shape ; some are longer 

 and more pointed, others rounder and blunter. According to 

 Aristotle, 1 the long-shaped and pointed eggs produce females ; 

 the blunt, on the contrary, yield males. Pliny, 2 however, 

 maintains the opposite. " The rounder eggs," he says, " pro- 

 duce females, the others males;" and with him Columella 3 

 agrees : " He who desires to have the greater number of his 

 brood cocks, let him select the longest and sharpest eggs for 

 incubation; and on the contrary, when he would have the 

 greater number females, let him choose the roundest eggs/' 

 The ground of Aristotle's opinion was this : because the rounder 

 eggs are the hotter, and it is the property of heat to concentrate 

 and determine, and that heat can do most which is most 

 powerful. From the stronger and more perfect principle, there- 

 fore, proceeds the stronger and more perfect animal. Such is 

 the male compared with the female, especially in the case of 

 the common fowl. On the contrary, again, the smaller eggs 

 are reckoned among the imperfect ones, and the smallest of all 

 are regarded as entirely unproductive. It was on this account 

 too that Aristotle, to secure the highest quality of eggs, recom- 

 mends that the hens be frequently trodden. Barren and ad- 

 ventitious eggs, he asserts, are smaller and less savoury, because 

 they are humid and imperfect. The differences indicated are 

 to be understood as referring to the eggs of the same fowl; for 

 when a certain hen goes on laying eggs of a certain character, 

 they will all produce either males or females. If you understand 

 this point otherwise, the guess as to males or females, from the 

 indications given, would be extremely uncertain. Because dif- 

 ferent hens lay eggs that differ much in respect of size and figure : 

 some habitually lay more oblong, others, rounder eggs, that do 



1 Hist. Anim. lib. vi, cap. 2. 2 Lib. x, cap. 52 ; lib. ix. 



3 De Re Rust. cap. 5, Scalig. in loc. 



