218 ON GENERATION. 



not differ greatly one from another ; and although I sometimes 

 found diversities in the eggs of the same fowl, these were still 

 so trifling in amount that they would have escaped any other 

 than the practised eye. For as all the eggs of the same fowl 

 acquire nearly the same figure, in the same womb or mould in 

 which the shell is deposited, (much as the excrements are 

 moulded into scybala in the cells of the colon,) it necessarily 

 falls out that they greatly resemble one another; so that I 

 myself, without much experience, could readily tell which hen 

 in a small flock had laid a given egg, and they who have given 

 much attention to the point, of course succeed much better. 

 But that which we note every day among huntsmen is far more 

 remarkable ; for the more careful keepers who have large herds 

 of stags or fallow deer under their charge, will very certainly tell 

 to which herd the horns which they find in the woods or thickets 

 belonged. A stupid and uneducated shepherd, having the charge 

 of a numerous flock of sheep, has been known to become so 

 familiar with the physiognomy of each, that if any one had 

 strayed from the flock, though he could not count them, he 

 could still say which one it was, give the particulars as to where 

 it had been bought, or whence it had come. The master of 

 this man, for the sake of trying him, once selected a particular 

 lamb from among forty others in the same pen, and desired 

 him to carry it to the ewe which was its dam, which he did 

 forthwith. We have known huntsmen who, having only once 

 seen a particular stag, or his horns, or even his print in the 

 mud, (as a lion is known by his claws,) have afterwards been 

 able to distinguish him by the same marks from every other; 

 some, too, from the foot-prints of deer, seen for the first time, 

 will draw inferences as to the size, and grease, and power of 

 the stag which has left them ; saying whether he were full of 

 strength, or weary from having been hunted ; and farther, whe- 

 ther the prints are those of a buck or a doe. I shall say thus 

 much more : there are some who, in "hunting, when there are 

 some forty hounds upon the trace of the game, and all are 

 giving tongue together, will nevertheless, and from a distance, 

 tell which dog is at the head of the pack, which at the tail, 

 which chases on the hot scent, which is running off at fault ; 

 whether the game is still running, or is at bay; whether the stag 

 have run far, or have but just been raised from his lair. And 



