ANATOMY OF THE EGG. 



THE OVARIUM. 



IN a laying hen, M. VIELE, an eminent anatomist of France, says, may 

 be found, on opening the body, what is termed the ovarium a cluster of 

 rudimental eggs, of different sizes, from very minute points up to shapes of 

 easily-distinguished forms. These rudimental eggs have as yet no shell or 

 white, these being exhibited in a different stage of development ; but consist 

 wholly of yolk, on the surface of which the germ of the future chicken lies. 

 The yolk and the germ are enveloped by a very thin membrane. When 



THE RUDIMENTAL EGG, 



still attached to the ovarium, becomes longer and larger, and arrives at a 

 certain size, either its own weight, or some other efficient cause, detaches 

 it from the cluster, and makes it fall into a sort of funnel, leading to a pipe, 

 which is called the oviduct. Here 



THE YOLK OF THE RUDIMENTAL EGG, 



hitherto imperfectly formed, puts on its mature appearance of a thick 

 yellow fluid; while the rudimental chick or embryo, lying on the surface 

 opposite to that by which it had been attached to the ovarium^ is white, and 

 somewhat like paste. The white, or 



ALBUMEN OP THE EGG, 



now becomes diffused around the yolk, being secreted from the blood vessels 

 of the egg-pipe, or oviduct, in the form of a thin, glassy fluid ; this is pre- 

 vented from mixing with the yolk and the embryo chicken by the thin 

 membrane which surrounded them before they were detached from the 

 egg-cluster, while it is strengthened by a second and stronger membrane, 

 formed around the first, immediately after falling into the oviduct. This 

 second membrane, enveloping the yolk of the germ of the chicken, is thickest 

 at the two ends, having what is termed bulgings by some, and chalazes by 

 anatomists ; these bulgings of the second membrane pass quite through the 

 white at the ends, and being thus, as it were, embedded in the white, they 

 keep the inclosed yolk and germ somewhat in a fixed position, preventing 



