Marvels of the Universe 991 
century (after whom the bird is named) had ex- 
amples in his wonderful menagerie at Knowsley. 
The Mountain Pheasant—sole representative 
of a peculiar sub-family—is apparently re- 
stricted in its range to one small patch of 
Southern Guatemala, the forests on the slopes of 
a mighty volcano, the Volcan de Fuego, nearly 
thirteen thousand feet high. This was an active 
volcano three hundred years ago, but has since 
been quiescent, and in the rich volcanic soil a 
forest of great denseness and variety harbours 
a wonderful fauna of birds. The Mountain 
Pheasant inhabits mainly the upper regions, 
the woods of evergreen oaks, cypress and pine, 
magnolia and bamboo, where the vegetation is 
a good deal like that of Florida. It nests in the 
boles or forks of trees, and is very difficult to 
see and shoot, in spite of its very striking 
plumage of glossy burnished green-black and 
ivory-white, its coral-red legs and scarlet horn. 
This strange excrescence in the male often 
attains a length of three inches. In the female 
it is shorter. The two sexes differ in size, but 
not in plumage, though the tints of the male 
are more vivid. 
THE BECOMING OF A CHICKEN 
IBN Vio JEG IONACHRUNID, JZAS, IARC. 
HORNED CURASSOW, 
Otherwise known as the Mountain Pheasant, and a native 
Few of us probably regard an egg in the  °! Guatemala. The baad of the male bird is here shown with 
its distinctive scarlet horn. 
light of one of Nature’s marvels; nevertheless 
that distinction might well be claimed for it. For it is surely nothing short of marvellous that 
the fluid contents enclosed within the white porous shell should, under certain conditions of 
temperature, become transformed in the space of about nineteen days into the pulsating body 
of a bird. 
To understand the course of this transformation it is necessary to bear in mind the fact 
that the fluid contents to which we have referred, the ‘‘ white” of the egg—which in its 
raw state is not white, but transparent 
little disc which everyone must have noticed lying on the top of the yolk of an egg 
« 
and the 
‘ yolk,”’ exist only for the sake of that 
When broken into a cup. This disc is the ‘‘ germ,’ the matter which is to give rise 
to the chick. All the rest is destined to serve as food for this germ, for being imprisoned 
within the shell no nourishment from the parent is possible. Very well. Now let us 
take a brief survey of yet other contrivances for the welfare and successful development of 
this germ. We have broken an egg into a cup, and have seen the germ; now notice the little 
hailstone-like bodies lying within a_ twisted, transparent cord, which is itself hardly dis- 
tinguishable from the rest of the ‘‘ white’ of the egg, of which it forms a part. These cords, 
one at each pole, are the chalaze, and serve to keep the yolk in position. The yolk itself 
is not a uniform liquid, but is composed of alternate, concentrically-arranged layers of 
white, and yellow yolk, though this fact is not easily demonstrated. Then, as to the shell! 
