280 THE LIFE OF A BIRD. 



enjoy a degree of protection which is not vouch- 

 safed to many members of the zoological kingdom. 

 It has been well said by the eminent and pious 

 naturalist Ray, " That birds should all lay eggs, 

 and none bring forth live young, is a manifest 

 argument of Divine Providence ; designing there- 

 by their preservation and security, that there 

 might be the more plenty of them; and that 

 neither the birds of prey, the serpent, nor the 

 fowler, should straiten their generations too much." 

 The eggs are, however, often a prey to birds and 

 other enemies. 



The little golden spot, called the cicatricula, is 

 the seat of all the remarkable changes which are 

 now to take place in the egg. "When incubation 

 actually commences, the parent bird " sits close," 

 as it is said, upon the nest which now contains 

 the complement of eggs peculiar to the species. 

 The warmth thus communicated by the breast of the 

 hen to the egg beneath her, penetrates the shell, 

 and acts in a peculiar, and, to our limited percep- 

 tions, in a wholly inexplicable manner upon the 

 germ. It will be remembered, that, in consequence 

 of the peculiar arrangements already alluded to, 

 this vital point in the egg is always floated upper- 



