CHICK IN THE EGG.
The hen has scarcely sat on the egg twelve hours, when we begin already to discover in it some lineaments of the head and body of the chicken that is to be born. The heart appears to beat at the end of the day; at the end of forty-eight hours, two vesicles of blood can be distinguished, the pulsation of which is very visible. At the fiftieth hour, an auricle of the heart appears, and resembles a lace, or noose folded down upon itself. At the end of seventy hours, we distinguish wings, and on the head two bubbles for the brain; one for the bill, and two others for the forepart and hindpart of the head; the liver appears towards the fifth day. At the end of one hundred and thirty-one hours, the first voluntary motion is observed. At the end of one hundred and thirty-eight hours the lungs and stomach become visible; at the end of one hundred and forty-two, the intestines, the loins, and the upper jaw. The seventh day, the brain, which was slimy, begins to have some consistence. At the 190th hour of incubation, the bill opens, and the flesh appears in the breast. At the 194th, the sternum is seen, that is to say, the breastbone. At the 210th, the ribs come out of the back, the bill is very visible, as well as the gall-bladder. The bill becomes green at the end of two hundred and thirty-six hours; and if the chick is taken out of its covering, it evidently moves itself. The feathers begin to shoot out towards the 240th hour, and the skull becomes gristly. At the 264th, the eyes appear. At the 288th, the ribs are perfect. At the 331st, the spleen draws near to the stomach, and the lungs to the chest. At the end of three hundred and fifty-five hours, the bill frequently opens and shuts; and at the end of four hundred and fifty-one hours, or the eighteenth day, the first cry of the chick is already heard: it afterwards gets more strength, and grows continually, till at last it sets itself at liberty, by opening the prison in which it was shut up. Thus is it by so many different degrees that these creatures are brought into life. All these progressions are made by rule, and there is not one of them without sufficient reason. No part of its body could appear sooner or later without the whole embryo suffering; and each of its limbs appears at the proper moment. How manifestly is this ordination—so wise, and so invariable in the production of the animal—the work of a Supreme Being!