GENERATION. SECT. XXXIX. 5. 



becaufe it has acquired a ftomach, and lungs, and 

 glands, of fufficient power to decompofe and re- 

 combine the milk ; and thus to prepare from it the 

 various kinds of nutritious particles, which the ap- 

 petencies of the various fibrils or nerves may re- 

 quire. 



From all this reafoning I would conclude, that 

 though the imagination of the female may be fup 

 pofed to affecl: the embryon by producing a differ- 

 ence in its early nutriment ; yet that no fuch pow- 

 er can affcft it after it has obtained a placenta, and 

 other organs ; which may fele6l or change the food, 

 which is prefemcd to it either in the liquor amnii, 

 or in the milk. Now as the eggs in pullets, like 

 the feed> in vegetables, are produced gradually, long 

 before they are' impregnated, it does not appear how 

 any fudden effect of imagination of the mother, 

 at the time of impregnation, can produce any confiv 

 derable change in the nutriment already thus laid 

 up for the expected or defired embryon. And that 

 hence any changes of the embryon, except thofe 

 uniform ones in the production of mules and mu- 

 lattoes, more probably depend on the imagination 

 of the male parent. At the fame time it feems ma- 

 nifeft, that thofe monftrous births, which confift in 

 fome deficiencies only, or fome redundancies of 

 parts, originate from the deficiency or redundance 

 of the firit nutriment prepared in the ovary, or in 

 the part of the egg immediately furrounding the 

 cicatricula, as defcribed above; and which continues 

 fome time to excite the firft living filament into 

 action, after the fimple animal is completed ; or 

 ceafes to excite it, before the complete form is ac- 

 complifhed. The former of thefe circumftances is 

 evinced by the eggs with double yolks, which fre- 

 quently happen to our domefticated poultry, and 

 which, I believe, are fo formed before impregna- 

 tion, but which would be well worth attending to, 



both 



