216 



flesh of none is poisonous, and though perhaps 

 often unpalatable to the epicure, it will yet afford 

 a meal to the starving wanderer ; their plumage 

 assists to keep him warm ; it enriches him, when 

 he exerts himself to collect it, and it adorns him 

 when he requires the external symbols of wealth 

 and of power. 



To whatever division of ornithology we direct 

 our view, we are impressed with feelings of the 

 deepest reverence for the Creator ; whether we 

 regard the egg and its contents, its colour, the 

 chick's egress from the shell, the formation of 

 its feathers, its aerial wanderings, the construc- 

 tion of its nest, its anxious and parental solici- 

 tude : all we see is beautiful and grand, filling 

 the coldest minds with astonishment and admi- 

 ration. 



Eggs are composed of two principal parts, 

 termed, from their colour, the yolk or vitellus, 

 and the white or albumen. The latter does not 

 exist in the ovarium or egg-bag ; there, as we 

 may see in almost every fowl that comes to table, 

 is also a numerous collection of yolks of various 

 sizes. When these are fully developed, they drop, 

 one by one, through a passage termed the ovi- 

 duct into the uterus^ in which the egg is perfectly 

 formed, having collected its albumen or white, 

 and its calcareous shell, and from which it is ul- 

 timately expelled. The very expeditious growth 

 or production of the white of the shell is indeed 

 an extraordinary exertion of nature a very few 

 hours only being sufficient to produce them. The 



