The egg is, as we have said, a kind of exposed uterus, and place in which the embryo is fashioned: for it performs the office of the uterus and enfolds the chick until the due time of its exclusion arrives, when the creature is born perfect. Oviparous animals consequently are not distinguished from viviparous by the circumstance of the one bringing forth their young alive, and the other not doing so; for the chick not only lives and moves within the egg, but even breathes and chirps whilst there; and, when it escapes from the shell, enjoys a more perfect existence than the fœtus of animals in general. Oviparous and viviparous animals rather differ in their modes of bringing forth; the uterus or place in which the embryo is formed being within the animal in viviparous tribes, where it is cherished and brought to maturity, whilst in oviparous tribes the uterus, or egg, is exposed or without the animal, which, nevertheless, by sitting on it does not cherish it less truly than if it were still contained within the body.
For though the mother occasionally quits her eggs on various errands, it is only for a short season; she still has such affection for them that she speedily returns, covers them over, cherishes them beneath her breast and carefully defends them; and this on to the twenty-first or twenty-second day, when the chicks, in search of freer air, break the shell and emerge into the light.
Now we must not overlook a mistake of Fabricius, and almost every one else in regard to this exclusion or birth of the chick. Let us hear Fabricius.[193]
“The chick wants air sooner than food, for it has still some store of nourishment within it; in which case the chick, by his chirping, gives a sign to his mother of the necessity of breaking the shell, which he himself cannot accomplish by reason of the hardness of the shell and the softness of his beak, to say nothing of the distance of the shell from the beak, and of the position of the head under the wing. The chick, nevertheless, is already so strong, and the cavity in the egg is so ample, and the air contained within it so abundant, that the breathing becomes free and the creature can emit the sounds that are proper to it; these can be readily heard by a bystander, and were recognized both by Pliny and Aristotle,[194] and perchance have something of the nature of a petition in their tone. For the hen hearing the chirping of the chick within, and knowing thereby the necessity of now breaking the shell in order that the chick may enjoy the air which has become needful to it, or if you will, you may say, that desiring to see her dear offspring, she breaks the shell with her beak, which is not hard to do, for the part over the hollow, long deprived of moisture, and exposed to the heat of incubation, has become dry and brittle. The chirping of the chick is consequently the first and principal indication of the creature desiring to make its escape, and of its requiring air. This the hen perceives so nicely, that if she hears the chirping to be low and internal, she straightway turns the egg over with her feet, that she may break the shell at the place whence the voice proceeds without detriment to the chick. Hippocrates adds,[195] “Another indication or reason of the chick’s desiring to escape from the shell, is that when it wants food it moves vigorously, in search of a larger supply, by which the membrane around it is torn, and the mother breaking the shell at the place where she hears the chick moving most lustily, permits it to escape.”
All this is stated pleasantly and well by Fabricius; but there is nothing of solid reason in the tale. For I have found by experience that it is the chick himself and not the hen that breaks open the shell, and this fact is every way in conformity with reason. For how else should the eggs that are hatched in dunghills and ovens, as in Egypt and other countries, be broken in due season, where there is no mother present to attend to the voice of the supplicating chick, and to bring assistance to the petitioner? And how again are the eggs of sea and land tortoises, of fishes, silkworms, serpents, and even ostriches to be chipped? The embryos in these have either no voice with which they can notify their desire for deliverance, or the eggs are buried in the sand or slime where no chirping or noise could be heard. The chick therefore is born spontaneously, and makes its escape from the eggshell through its own efforts. That this is the case appears from unquestionable arguments: when the shell is first chipped, the opening is much smaller than accords with the beak of the mother; but it corresponds exactly to the size of the bill of the chick, and you may always see the shell chipped at the same distance from the extremity of the egg, and the broken pieces, especially those that yield to the first blows, projecting regularly outwards in the form of a circlet. But as any one on looking at a broken pane of glass can readily determine whether the force came from without or from within, by the direction of the fragments that still adhere, so in the chipped egg it is easy to perceive, by the projection of the pieces around the entire circlet, that the breaking force comes from within. And I myself and many others with me besides, hearing the chick scraping against the shell with its feet, have actually seen it perforate this part with its beak, and extend the fracture in a circle like a coronet. I have further seen the chick raise up the top of the shell upon its head and remove it.
We have gone at length into some of these matters, as thinking that they were not without all speculative interest, as we shall show by and by. The arguments of Fabricius are easily answered. For I admit that the chick in ovo produces sounds, and these perchance may even have something of the implorative in their nature; but it does not therefore follow that the shell is broken by the mother. Neither is the bill of the chick so soft, nor yet so far from the shell, that it cannot pierce through its prison walls, particularly when we see that the shell, for the reasons assigned, is extremely brittle. Neither does the chick always keep its head under its wing, so as to be thereby prevented from breaking the shell, but only when it sleeps or has died. For the creature wakes at intervals and scrapes and kicks, and struggles, pressing against the shell, tearing the investing membranes, and chirps, (and that this is done whilst petitioning for assistance I willingly concede,) all of which things may readily be heard by any one who will use his ears. And the hen listening attentively when she hears the chirping deep within the egg does not break the shell, but she turns the egg with her feet and gives the chick within another and a more commodious position. But there is no occasion to suppose that the chick by his chirping informs his mother of the propriety of breaking the shell, or seeks deliverance from it. For very frequently for two days before the exclusion you may hear the chick chirping within the shell. Neither is the mother, when she turns the egg, looking for the proper place to break it; but as the child when uncomfortably laid in his cradle is restless and whimpers and cries, and his fond mother turns him this way and that, and rocks him till he is composed again, so does the hen when she hears the chick restless and chirping within the egg, and feels it, when hatched, moving uneasily about in the nest, immediately raise herself and observe that she is not pressing on it with her weight, or keeping it too warm, or the like, and then with her bill and her feet she moves and turns the egg until the chick within is again at its ease and quiet.
EXERCISE THE TWENTY-FOURTH.
Of twin-bearing eggs.
Twin-bearing eggs are such as produce twin chickens, and according to Aristotle,[196] “are possessed of two yelks, which, in some are separated by a layer of thin albumen, that they may less encroach on one another; in others, however, there is nothing of the sort, and then the two yelks are in contact.”
I have frequently seen twin eggs, each of the yelks in which was surrounded by an albumen, with common and proper membranes surrounding them. I have also met with eggs having two yelks connate, as it were, both of which were embraced by a single and common albumen.