Buffon's Natural History, Volume 03 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c.Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History, Volume 03 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c.
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
At the end of the third day the head of the chicken appeared crooked;
besides the eyes five vessels were seen in the head filled with a
liquid matter; the first outlines of the wings and thighs were to be
distinguished, and the body began to gather flesh; the pupil of the
eye, and also the crystalline and vitreous humour were discernible. At
the fourth day the vesicles of the brain were nearer each other; the
eminences of the vertebræ were more prominent, the wings and thighs
assumed a greater solidity as they increased in length; the whole body,
covered with a jelly-like flesh, was now surrounded within the body by
a thin membrane, and the umbilical vessels that unite the animal to
the yolk, appeared to come from the abdomen. On the fifth and sixth
days the vesicles of the brain began to be covered; the spinal marrow,
divided into two parts, began to take solidity and stretch along the
trunk; the wings and thighs lengthened; the feet began to spread; the
belly was closed up and tumid; the liver was distinctly seen, and
appeared of a dusky white; the ventricles of the heart were discerned
to beat very distinctly; the body of the chicken was covered with a
skin, and the traces of the feathers were visible; the seventh day
the head appeared very large, the brain was entirely covered with its
membranes; the beak began to appear betwixt the eyes, and the wings,
the thighs, and the legs had acquired their perfect figure.
I shall not follow Malpighius any farther, as the remainder relates
only to the expansion of the parts till the twenty-first day, when the
chicken breaks the shell with its beak; though before that time it is
heard to chirrup in its imprisonment. The heart is the last part which
receives its proper form, for it is eleven days before the arteries
are seen to join, and the ventricles become perfectly conformable and
united.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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