rOL. XVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 433 



forward, but what were in the centre of the cicatricula, and perhaps the nidus 

 necessary for their formation is so proportioned to their bulk, that it can hardly 

 contain more than one animalcule ; and this may be the reason why there are so 

 few monsters. This we see is absolutely necessary in the oviparous kinds ; and 

 the only difference which seems to be between them and the viviparous, in this 

 matter, is in this, that in the latter the ova are properly nothing more than the 

 cicatricula with its colliquamentum, so that the foetus must spread forth its roots 

 into the uterus to receive its nourishm jnt ; but the eggs in the oviparous may 

 be properly termed a uterus in relation to the foetus ; for they contain not only 

 the cicatricula, with its amnion and the colliquamentum, which latter is the im- 

 mediate nourishment of the foetus, but also the materials which are to be con- 

 verted into that colliquamentum, so that the foetus spreads forth its roots na 

 farther than into the white and yolk of the egg, from whence it derives all its 

 nourishment. Now, that an animalcule cannot come forward without some 

 such proper nidus, will not readily be denied ; for if there were nothing need- 

 ful but their being thrown into the uterus, I do not see why many hundreds of 

 them should not come forward at once, at least, whilst scattered in so large a 

 field. 2. That this cicatricula is not originally in the uterus, seems evident 

 from the frequent conceptions which have been found without the uterus : such 

 as the child which continued 26 years in the woman of Toulouse's belly, men- 

 tioned in N° 139, of the Phil. Trans. ; and the little foetus found in the abdo- 

 men de St. Mere, together with the testicle torn and full of clotted blood, re- 

 corded N° 150, both taken out of the journal des Sqavans : such also seems 

 to be the foetus in the abdomen of the woman of Copenhagen, mentioned in 

 the Nouvelles des Lettres, for Sept. 25, page 996, all the members of which 

 were easily to be felt through the skin of the belly, and which she had carried 

 in her belly for 4 years ; and the 7 years gravidation related by Dr. Cole, 

 N° J 72, of the Transactions. That these two were undoubtedly without the 

 uterus is uncertain, because the last was not opened after her death, and the 

 former may be yet still alive. Now granting once the necessity of a proper 

 nidus for the formation of an animalcule into the animal of its respective kind ; 

 these observations make it probable, that the testes are the ovaria appropriated 

 for this use ; for though the animalcules coming thither in such cases may seem 

 to be extraordinary, and that usually the impregnation is in the uterus j yet it 

 may be collected from hence, that the cicatriculae or ova to be impregnated, are 

 in testibus foemineis ; for if it were not so, the accidental coming of animalcules 

 thither could not make them come forward more than in any other part of the 

 body, since they cannot be formed and nourished without a proper nidus. 3. It 

 is acknowledged by all, that the foetus in the uterus, for some considerable tim© 

 yoL, 111. 3 K 



