66 
BIRD-LIFE. 
loses about one grain per diem, or three drachms six 
grains in all.* 
How would it fare with creation without light and 
warmth, those twin sisters, separate and yet blended in 
one ? They send forth their rays all over the whole 
world, even in the darkest nook, and create, fashion, 
charm, and vivify without ceasing. All the compo¬ 
nent parts of the egg, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen 
and carbon, which indeed are, almost without exception, 
to be obtained from the primary elements of plant and 
animal life, by analysis, are dead without this divine 
power, to which we stand indebted,—who can say to 
what extent! In the quickening of the egg it is not a 
question of that heaven-born warmth, which we can only 
think of in connection with light, but that emanating 
from the breast of the mother, which replaces the sun’s 
rays; and this heat can even be supplied through the 
agency of a simple machine. A uniform temperature of 
thirty degrees of Reaumur (equal to that of our blood), 
kept up for days together, is all that is required to hatch 
the egg of a bird. 
The naturalists of the present day have, with the assist¬ 
ance of the “ incubator,” been enabled to make a great 
number of observations, from which they have gathered 
much valuable information on the subject. I will now give 
to my readers, in the shortest possible space, the result 
of their experiments with the egg of the domestic Fowl. 
A few hours after the operation of incubation has 
commenced, that is to say, soon after the egg has become 
thoroughly warmed through, the first breath of awakened 
life is to be perceived in the germ spot. In a perfectly 
fresh egg, with the aid of a powerful microscope, we 
* According to Czermak, 
