270 ON GENERATION. 



EXERCISE THE TWENTY-FIFTH. 



Certain Deductions from the preceding History of the Eyy. 



Such is the history of the hen's egg; in which we have spoken 

 of its production, and of its action or faculty to engender a 

 chick, at too great length, it may appear to those who do not 

 see the end and object of such painstaking, of such careful ob- 

 servation. Wherefore I think it advisable here to state what 

 fruits may follow our industry, and in the words of the learned 

 Lord Verulam, to " enter upon our second vintage." Certain 

 theorems, therefore, will have to be gathered from the history 

 given ; some of which will be quite certain, some questionable 

 and requiring further sifting, and some paradoxical and opposed 

 to popular persuasion. Some of these, moreover, will have re- 

 ference to the male, some to the female, several to the egg, and 

 finally, a few to the formation of the chick. When these have 

 been carefully discussed seriatim, we shall be in a condition to 

 judge with greater certainty and facility of the generation of 

 all other animals. 



EXERCISE THE TWENTY-SIXTH. 



Of the nature of the egg. 



Of the theorems that refer to the egg, some teach us what it 

 is, some show its mode of formation, and others tell of the parts 

 which compose it. 



It is certain, in the first place, that one egg produces one 

 chick only. Although the egg be in a certain sense an external 

 uterus, still it most rarely engenders several embryos, but by 

 far the most frequently produces no more than a single pullet. 

 And when an egg produces two chicks, which it does sometimes, 

 still is this egg to be reputed not single but double, and as 

 possessed of the nature and parts of two eggs. 



For an egg is to be viewed as a conception proceeding from 



