capable of living, but for the most part speedily die, either by reason of want of room or of air in the shell, or because the one proves a hinderance to the other and blights it; nor can it happen that both should be equally prepared for exclusion—that one should not prove an abortion.
Briefly and summarily the differences among eggs are principally of three kinds: some are prolific, some unprolific; some will produce males and some females; some are the produce of the two sexes of the same species, others of allied species and will produce hybrids, such as we see between the common hen and the pheasant, the progeny being referrible either to the first or to the last male that had connexion with the hen. Because, according to Aristotle,[1] "the egg, which receives its constitution by intercourse, passes from its own into another genus, if the hen be trodden when she carries either an adventitious egg or one that was conceived under the influence of another male, and this renewed intercourse take place before the yellow is changed into the white. So that hypenemic or wind eggs are made fruitful, and fruitful eggs receive the form of the male which has connexion last. But if the change has taken place into the white, it cannot happen either that the wind egg is turned into a fertile one, or that the egg which is contained in the uterus in virtue of a previous intercourse, shall be altered into the genus of the male which has the second communication." For the seminal fluid of the cock, as Scaliger wittily remarks, is like a testament, the last will or disposition in which is that which stands in force.
To these particulars it might perhaps be added, that some eggs are more strong and lusty than others, more full of life, if the expression may be used; though as there is a vital principle in the egg, so must there inhere the corresponding virtue that flows from it. For, as in other kinds of animals, some of the females are so replete with desire, so full of Venus, that they conceive from any and every intercourse, even once submitted to, and from a weakly male, and produce several young from the same embrace; others, on the contrary, are so torpid and sluggish, that unless they are assailed by a vigorous male, under the influence of strong desire, and that not once, but repeatedly, and for
- ↑ Hist. Anim. lib. vi, cap. 21.
