The body is indeed extremely minute, and of the form of the common maggot that gives birth to the fly; it is of a white colour, too, like the maggot of the flesh-fly which we see cherished and nourished in putrid meat. He happily adds, “it is most remarkable for its head and eyes.” For what first appears is homogeneous and indistinct, a kind of concretion or coagulation of the colliquament, like the jelly prepared from hartshorn; it is a mere transparent cloud, and scarcely recognizable, save as it appears, divided, seemingly, into two parts, one of which is globular and much larger than the other; this is the rudiment of the head, which first becomes visible on the fifth day, very soon after which the eyes are distinguishable, being from the first of large size and prominent, and marked off from the rest of the head and body by a certain circumfusion of black matter. Either of the eyes is larger than the whole of the rest of the head, in the same way as the head surpasses the remainder of the body in dimensions. The whiteness of the body, and prominence of the eyes, (which, as well as the brain, are filled internally with perfectly pellucid water, but externally are of a dark colour), continue for some time--up to the tenth day, and even longer; for, as we have seen, Aristotle says that “the eyes decrease at a late period, and contract to the proper proportion.” But for my own part, I do not think that the eyes of birds ever contract in the same ratio which we observe between the head and eyes of a viviparous animal. For if you strip off the integuments from the head and eyes of a fowl or another bird, you will perceive one of the eyes to equal the entire brain in dimensions; in the woodcock and others, one of the eyes indeed is as large as the whole head, if you make abstraction of the bill. But this is common to all birds that the orbit or cavity which surrounds the eye is larger than the brain, a fact that is apparent in the cranium of every bird. Their eyes, however, are made to look smaller, because every part, except the pupil, is covered with skin and feathers; neither are they possessed of such a globular form as would cause them to project; they are of a flatter configuration, as in fishes.