Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/318

not differ greatly one from another ; and although I sometimes found diversities in the eggs of the same fowl, these were still so trifling in amount that they would have escaped any other than the practised eye. For as all the eggs of the same fowl acquire nearly the same figure, in the same womb or mould in which the shell is deposited, (much as the excrements are moulded into scybala in the cells of the colon,) it necessarily falls out that they greatly resemble one another; so that I myself, without much experience, could readily tell which hen in a small flock had laid a given egg, and they who have given much attention to the point, of course succeed much better. But that which we note every day among huntsmen is far more remarkable ; for the more careful keepers who have large herds of stags or fallow deer under their charge, will very certainly tell to which herd the horns which they find in the woods or thickets belonged. A stupid and uneducated shepherd, having the charge of a numerous flock of sheep, has been known to become so familiar with the physiognomy of each, that if any one had strayed from the flock, though he could not count them, he could still say which one it was, give the particulars as to where it had been bought, or whence it had come. The master of this man, for the sake of trying him, once selected a particular lamb from among forty others in the same pen, and desired him to carry it to the ewe which was its dam, which he did forthwith. We have known huntsmen who, having only once seen a particular stag, or his horns, or even his print in the mud, (as a lion is known by his claws,) have afterwards been able to distinguish him by the same marks from every other; some, too, from the foot-prints of deer, seen for the first time, will draw inferences as to the size, and grease, and power of the stag which has left them ; saying whether he were full of strength, or weary from having been hunted ; and farther, whe- ther the prints are those of a buck or a doe. I shall say thus much more : there are some who, in "hunting, when there are some forty hounds upon the trace of the game, and all are giving tongue together, will nevertheless, and from a distance, tell which dog is at the head of the pack, which at the tail, which chases on the hot scent, which is running off at fault ; whether the game is still running, or is at bay; whether the stag have run far, or have but just been raised from his lair. And