EXERCISE THE TWELFTH.
Of the remaining parts of the egg.
We have already spoken partially of the place where, the time when, and the manner how the remaining parts of the egg are engendered, and we shall have something more to add when we come to speak of their several uses.
“The albumen,” says Fabricius,[151] “is the ovi albus liquor of Pliny, the ovi candidum of Celsus, the ovi albor of Palladius, the ovi album et albumentum of Apicius, the λευκὸν of the Greeks, the ώοῡ λεύκωμα of Aristotle, the ὄρνιθος γάλα, or bird’s milk of Anaxagoras. This is the cold, sluggish, white fluid of the egg, of different thickness at different places (thinner at the blunt and sharp ends, thicker in other situations,) and also in variable quantity (for it is more abundant at the blunt end, less so at the sharp end, and still less so in the other parts of the egg), covering and surrounding the yelk on every side.”
In the hen’s egg, however, I have observed that there are not only differences in the albumen, but two albumens, each surrounded with its proper membrane. One of these is thinner, more liquid, and almost of the same consistence as that humour which, remaining among the folds of the uterus, we have called the matter and nourishment of the albumen; the other is thicker, more viscid, and rather whiter in its colour, and in old and stale eggs, and those that have been sat upon for some days, it is of a yellowish cast. As this second albumen everywhere surrounds the yelk, so is it, in like manner, itself surrounded by the more external fluid. That these two albumens are distinct appears from this, that if after having removed the shell you pierce the two outermost membranes, you will perceive the external albuminous liquid to make its escape, and the membranes to become collapsed and to sink down in the dish; the internal and thicker albumen, however, all the while retains its place and globular figure, inasmuch as it is bounded by its proper membrane, although this is of such tenuity that it entirely escapes detection by the eye; but if you then prick it, the second albumen will forthwith begin to flow out, and the mass will lose its globular shape; just as the water contained in a bladder escapes when it is punctured; in like manner the proper investing membrane of the vitellus being punctured, the yellow fluid of which it consists escapes, and the original globular form is destroyed.
“The vitellus,” says Fabricius,[152] “is so called from the word vita, because the chick lives upon it; from its colour it is also spoken of as the yellow of the egg, having been called by the Greeks generally, χρυσὸν, by Hippocrates χλωρὸν, and by Aristotle ώχρὸν and λεκυθὸν; the ancients, such as Suidas in Menander, called it νεοττὸν, i. e. the chick, because they believed the chick to be engendered from this part. It is the smoothest portion of the egg, and is contained within a most delicate membrane, immediately escaping if this be torn, and losing all figure; it is sustained in the middle of the egg; and in one egg is of a yellow colour, in another of a tint between white and yellow; it is quite round, of variable size, according to the size of the bird that lays the egg, and, according to Aristotle, of a deeper yellow in water birds, of a paler hue in land birds.” The same author[153] also maintains that “the yellow and the white of an egg are of opposite natures, not only in colour but in qualities; for the yellow is inspissated by cold, which the white is not, but is rather rendered more liquid; and the white, on the contrary, is thickened by heat, which the yellow is not, unless it be burned or over-done, and it is more hardened and dried by boiling than by roasting.” As in the macrocosm the earth is placed in the centre, and is surrounded by the water and the air, so is the yelk, the more earthy part of the egg, surrounded by two albuminous layers, one thicker, another thinner. And, indeed, Aristotle[154] says that, “if we put a number of yelks and whites together, and mix them in a pan, and then boil them with a slow and gentle fire, that the whole of the yelks will set into a globular mass in the middle, and appear surrounded by the whites.” But many physicians have been of opinion that the white was the colder portion of the egg. Of these matters, however, more by and by.
The chalazæ, the treads or treadles (gralladura Ital.) are two in number in each egg, one in the blunt, another in the sharp end. The larger portion of them is contained in the white; but they are most intimately connected with the yelk, and with its membrane. They are two long-shaped bodies, firmer than the albumen and whiter; knotty, not without a certain transparency like hail, whence their name; each chalaza, in fact, is made up of several hailstones, as it seems, connected by means of albumen. One of them is larger than the other, and this extends from the yelk towards the blunt end of the egg; the other and smaller chalaza stretches from the yelk towards the sharp end of the egg. The larger is made up of two or three knots or seeming hailstones, at a trifling distance from one another, and of successively smaller size.
The chalazæ are found in the eggs of all birds, and in wind and unprolific as well as in perfect or prolific eggs, duly disposed in both their extremities. Whence the supposition among housewives that the chalazæ are the tread or spermatic fluid of the cock, and that the chick is generated from them is discovered to be a vulgar error. But Fabricius himself, although he denies that they consist of the semen of the cock, still gives various reasons for maintaining that “they are the immediate matter which the cock fecundates, and from which the chick is produced;” a notion which he seeks to prop by this feeble statement: “because in a boiled egg, the chalazæ are so contracted on themselves that they present the figure of a chick already formed and hatched.” But it is not likely that several rudiments of a single fœtus should be wanted in one egg, neither has any one ever discovered the rudiments of the future chick save in the blunt end of the egg. Moreover the chalazæ present no sensible difference in eggs that are fecundated by the intercourse of the two sexes, from those of eggs that are barren. Our distinguished author is therefore mistaken in regard to the use of the chalazæ in the egg, as shall farther be made to appear by and by.
In the eggs of even the smallest birds there is a slender filament, the rudiments of the chalazæ, to be discovered; and in those of the ostrich and cassowary I have found, in either end of the egg very thick chalazæ, of great length, and very white colour, made up of several globules gradually diminishing in size.
A small cavity is observed in the inside of an egg under the shell, at the blunt end; sometimes exactly in the middle, at other times more to one side, almost exactly corresponding to the chalaza that lies below it. The figure of this cavity is generally circular, though in the goose and duck it is not exactly so. It is seen as a dark spot if you hold an egg opposite a candle in a dark place, and apply your hand edgeways over the blunt end. In the egg just laid it is of small size,—about the size of the pupil of the human eye; but it grows larger daily as the egg is older, and the air is warmer; it is much increased after the first day of incubation; as if by the exhalation of some of the more external and liquid albumen the remainder contracted, and left a larger cavity; for the cavity in question is produced between the shell and the membrane which surrounds the whole of the fluids of the egg. It is met with in all eggs; I have discovered it, even in those that are still contained in the uterus, as soon as they had become invested with the shell. They who are curious in such matters say that if this cavity be in the point or end of the egg it will produce a male, if towards the side, a female. This much is certain: if the cavity be small it indicates that the egg is fresh-laid; if large, that it is stale. But we shall have occasion anon to say more on this head.
There is a white and very small circle apparent in the investing membrane of the vitellus, which looks like an inbranded cicatrice, which Fabricius therefore calls cicatricula; but he makes little of this spot, and looks on it rather as an accident or blemish than as any essential part of the egg. The cicatricula in question is extremely small; not larger than a tiny lentil, or the pupil of a small bird’s eye; white, flat, and circular. This part is also found in every egg, and even from its commencement in the vitellarium. Fabricius, therefore, is mistaken when he thinks that this spot is nothing more than the trace or cicatrice of the severed peduncle, by which the egg was in the first instance connected with the ovary. For the peduncle, as he himself admits, is hollow, and as it approaches the vitellus expands, so as to surround or embrace, and inclose the yelk in a kind of pouch: it is not connected with the yelk in the same way as the stalks of apples and other fruits are infixed, and so as to leave any cicatrice when the yelk is cast loose. And if you sometimes find two cicatriculæ in a large yelk, as Fabricius states, this might, perhaps, lead to the production of a monster and double fœtus, (as shall be afterwards shown), but would be no indication of the preexistence of a double peduncle. He is, however, immensely mistaken when he imagines that the cicatricula serves no purpose; for it is, in fact, the most important part of the whole egg, and that for whose sake all the others exist; it is that, in a word, from which the chick takes its rise. Parisanus, too, is in error, when he contends that this is the semen of the cock.