the principle of the male is separated off in eggs at the point where the egg is attached to the uterus, and the reason why the shape of two-coloured eggs is unsymmetrical, and not perfectly round but sharper at one end, is that the part of the white in which is contained this principle must differ from the rest. therefore the egg is harder at this point than below, for it is necessary to shelter and protect this principle. and this is why the sharp end of the egg comes out of the hen later than the blunt end; for the part attached to the uterus comes out later, and the egg is attached at the point where is the said principle, and the principle is in the sharp end. the same is the case also in the seeds of plants; the principle of the seed is attached sometimes to the twig, sometimes to the husk, sometimes to the pericarp. this is plain in the leguminous plants, for where the two cotyledons of beans and of similar seeds are united, there is the seed attached to the parent plant, and there is the principle of the seed.
a difficulty may be raised about the growth of the egg; how is it derived from the uterus? for if animals derive their nutriment through the umbilical cord, through what do eggs derive it? they do not, like a scolex, acquire their growth by their own means. if there is anything by which they are attached to the uterus, what becomes of this when the egg is perfected? it does not come out with the egg as the cord does with animals; for when its egg is perfected the shell forms all round it. this problem is rightly raised, but it is not observed that the shell is at first only a soft membrane, and that it is only after the egg is perfected that it becomes hard and brittle; this is so nicely adjusted that it is still soft when it comes out (for otherwise it would cause pain in laying), but no sooner has it come out than it is fixed hard by cooling, the moisture quickly evaporating because there is but little of it, and the earthy part remaining. now at first a certain part of this membrane at the sharp end of eggs resembles an umbilical cord, and projects like a pipe from them while they are still small. it is plainly visible in small aborted eggs, for if the bird be drenched with water or suddenly chilled in any other way and cast out the egg too soon, it appears still sanguineous and with a small tail like an umbilical cord running through it. as the egg becomes larger this is more twisted round and becomes smaller, and when the egg is perfected this end is the sharp end. under this is the inner membrane which separates the white and the yolk from this. when the egg is perfected, the whole of it is set free, and naturally the umbilical cord does not appear, for it is now the extreme end of the egg itself.
the egg is discharged in the opposite way from the young of vivipara; the latter are born head-first, the part where is the first principle leading, but the egg is discharged as it were feet first; the reason of this being what has been stated, that the egg is attached to the uterus at the point where is the first principle.
the young bird is produced out of the egg by the mother’s incubating and aiding the concoction, the creature developing out of part of the egg, and receiving growth and completion from the remaining part. for nature not only places the material of the creature in the egg but also the nourishment sufficient for its growth; for since the mother bird cannot perfect her young within herself she produces the nourishment in the egg along with it. whereas the nourishment, what is called milk, is produced for the young of vivipara in another part, in the breasts, nature does this for birds in the egg. the opposite, however, is the case to what people think and what is asserted by alcmaeon of crotona. for it is not the white that is the milk, but the yolk, for it is this that is the nourishment of the chick, whereas they think it is the white because of the similarity of colour.
the chick then, as has been said, comes into being by the incubation of the mother; yet if the temperature of the season is favourable, or if the place in which the eggs happen to lie is warm, the eggs are sufficiently concocted without incubation, both those of birds and those of oviparous quadrupeds. for these all lay their eggs upon the ground, where they are concocted by the heat in the earth. such oviparous quadrupeds as do visit their eggs and incubate do so rather for the sake of protecting them than of incubation.
the eggs of these quadrupeds are formed in the same way as those of birds, for they are hard-shelled and two-coloured, and they are formed near the hypozoma as are those of birds, and in all other respects resemble them both internally and externally, so that the inquiry into their causes is the same for all. but whereas the eggs of quadrupeds are hatched out by the mere heat of the weather owing to their strength, those of birds are more exposed to destruction and need the mother-bird. nature seems to wish to implant in animals a special sense of care for their young: in the inferior animals this lasts only to the moment of giving birth to the incompletely developed animal; in others it continues till they are perfect; in all that are more intelligent, during the bringing up of the young also. in those which have the greatest portion in intelligence we find familiarity and love shown also towards the young when perfected, as with men and some quadrupeds; with birds we find it till they have produced and brought up their young, and therefore if the hens do not incubate after laying they get into worse condition, as if deprived of something natural to them.
the young is perfected within the egg more quickly in sunshiny weather, the season aiding in the work, for concoction is a kind of heat. for the earth aids in the concoction by its heat, and the brooding hen does the same, for she applies the heat that is within her. and it is in the hot season, as we should expect, that the eggs are more apt to be spoilt and the so-called ‘uria’ or rotten eggs are produced; for just as wines turn sour in the heats from the sediment rising (for this is the cause of their being spoilt), so is it with the yolk in eggs, for the sediment and yolk are the earthy part in each case, wherefore the wine becomes turbid when the sediment mixes with it, and the like applies to the eggs that are spoiling because of the yolk. it is natural then that such should be the case with the birds that lay many eggs, for it is not easy to give the fitting amount of heat to all, but (while some have too little) others have too much and this makes them turbid, as it were by putrefaction. but this happens none the less with the birds of prey though they lay few eggs, for often one of the two becomes rotten, and the third practically always, for being of a hot nature they make the moisture in the eggs to overboil so to say. for the nature of the white is opposed to that of the yolk; the yolk congeals in frosts but liquefies on heating, and therefore it liquefies on concoction in the earth or by reason of incubation, and becoming liquid serves as nutriment for the developing chick. if exposed to heat and roasted it does not become hard, because though earthy in nature it is only so in the same way as wax is; accordingly on heating too much the eggs become watery and rotten, [if they be not from a liquid residue]. the white on the contrary is not congealed by frost but rather liquefies (the reason of which has been stated before), but on exposure to heat becomes solid. therefore being concocted in the development of the chick it is thickened. for it is from this that the young is formed (whereas the yolk turns to nutriment) and it is from this that the parts derive their growth as they are formed one after another. this is why the white and the yolk are separated by membranes, as being different in nature. the precise details of the relation of the parts to one another both at the beginning of generation and as the animals are forming, and also the details of the membranes and umbilical cords, must be learnt from what has been written in the enquiries; for the present investigation it is sufficient to understand this much clearly, that, when the heart has been first formed and the great blood-vessel has been marked off from it, two umbilical cords run from the vessel, the one to the membrane which encloses the yolk, the other to the membrane resembling a chorion which surrounds the whole embryo; this latter runs round on the inside of the membrane of the shell. through the one of these the embryo receives the nutriment from the yolk, and the yolk becomes larger, for it becomes more liquid by heating. this is because the nourishment, being of a material character in its first form, must become liquid before it can be absorbed, just as it is with plants, and at first this embryo, whether in an egg or in the mother’s uterus, lives the life of a plant, for it receives its first growth and nourishment by being attached to something else.
the second umbilical cord runs to the surrounding chorion. for we must understand that, in the case of animals developed in eggs, the chick has the same relation to the yolk as the embryo of the vivipara has to the mother so long as it is within the mother (for since the nourishment of the embryo of the ovipara is not completed within the mother, the embryo takes part of it away from her). so also the relation of the chick to the outermost membrane, the sanguineous one, is like that of the mammalian embryo to the uterus. at the same time the egg-shell surrounds both the yolk and the membrane analogous to the uterus, just as if it should be put round both the embryo itself and the whole of the mother, in the vivipara. this is so because the embryo must be in the uterus and attached to the mother. now in the vivipara the uterus is within the mother, but in the ovipara it is the other way about, as if one should say that the mother was in the uterus, for that which comes from the mother, the nutriment, is the yolk. the reason is that the process of nourishment is not completed within the mother.
as the creature grows the umbilicus running the chorion collapses first, because it is here that the young is to come out; what is left of the yolk, and the umbilical cord running to the yolk, collapse later. for the young must have nourishment as soon as it is hatched; it is not nursed by the mother and cannot immediately procure its nourishment for itself; therefore the yolk enters within it along with its umbilicus and the flesh grows round it.
this then is the manner in which animals produced from perfect eggs are hatched in all those, whether birds or quadrupeds, which lay the egg with a hard shell. these details are plainer in the larger creatures; in the smaller they are obscure because of the smallness of the masses concerned.
