DEFECTIVE EGGS. 315 



the eggs in a cool place. Some eggs, in con- 

 sequence of a defect in their physical structure, 

 however newly-laid, will produce no chicks ; this, 

 however, cannot be foreseen from their external 

 appearance. 



The third stage in the life of a bird is thus 

 brought to a close. In all the facts upon in- 

 cubation, in all the mother's anxiety and assiduity 

 during this period, in all the wonders of opening 

 life, and in its progress to the development of the 

 animated being from the apparently inanimate 

 egg, there is abundant matter for our attentive con- 

 sideration and thought. And mysterious though 

 the subject still remains, after all that the most 

 profound philosophy has attempted to do in the 

 way of explanation, we have evidence in all of the 

 wisdom, nor less of the goodness of God both in and 

 towards all his creatures. If a philosopher were 

 shown an egg or a seed for the first time, if he 

 were acquainted only with birds and plants, as they 

 appear in their complete forms in the fowl of the 

 air and the tree of the plain, what would be his 

 astonishment at learning that the seed and the egg 

 were but the early conditions of those forms of 

 organic life, and that on the application of a few 



