VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 701 



siclerable large trees. Besides it may be that cows, when in their heat, may 

 afford larger eggs. Meantime the reason why the eggs of fowls are always pro- 

 portionably greater than those of women and of quadrupeds is, that they, when 

 laid, must contain the matter not only for forming, but also for feeding the 

 young animal. 



3. That this opinion is not so new as some imagine; since Fallopius in Ob- 

 serv. Anatom. Bartol. Anat. Reform. 1. 1. c. 26. Riolan. Ench. Anat. 1. 2. c. 37. 

 Laurent. Anat. 1. 7. c. 10, mention them. 



But here we shall observe the true state of the question, from the Journal of 

 M. Gaulois, saying that the vesicles or eggs in all sorts of females, are to be con- 

 sidered in three conditions : 1 . When they are fastened to the place where 

 nature has lodged them as in a repository. 2. When they are loosened from 

 thence. 3. When they enclose the embryo. The first of these, viz. that there 

 are vesicles in all sorts of females fastened to their bodies, is certain and not new, 

 as appears by the authors just now quoted. It is also certain, that after concep- 

 tion, that which encloses the foetus is almost like an egg: but this is not new 

 neither, seeing that Hippocrates has observed itlib. deNatura Pueri ; and Aristotle 

 has said it more than once, viz. 1. 7- Hist. Anim. c. 7. and 1. 3. de Gener. Anim. 

 c. 9. To which also the moderns agree, and amongst others the famous Har- 

 vey Exper. 68. de Gener. Anim. The question therefore is only, whether these 

 vesicles, fastened to the body of females are loosened from it, and whether that 

 kind of eggs, wherein the embryo is formed, is one of the vesicles loosened ? 

 Kirkringius asserts the affirmative. Those who are of a contrary opinion say, 

 that it is certain that that bladder, like an egg in which the foetus is formed, 

 comes not from elsewhere ; since it is known that it is produced in the place of 

 conception, and even how it is there produced; as appears out of Harvey, ibid, 

 et Tract, de Concept. Besides say they, the vesicles found in the body of wo- 

 men are so fastened there, that naturally they cannot be separated from thence ; 

 and suppose if they were loosened, there is in the same place where they are, 

 no passage large enough to get through. They add, that if you will give the 

 name of eggs to all the vesicles to be found in the parts of generation, there 

 would also be eggs in the body of men, it being known, that at the side of the 

 vasa deferentia there are found divers vesicles, which anatomists compare to a 

 cluster of grapes by reason of their figure. 



The reader, says this Journalist, is left to decide this question. He only 

 intimates, that in the many animals dissected in the Royal Philosophical Aca- 

 demy at Paris, there were never found any vesicles actually loose : but that as to 

 a passage for them, there had been, three years since, dissected a woman, and 

 found in each of the tubee uteri a manifest cavity going into the bottom of the 



