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Show 334 THE EGG. habits: . A careful observer may indeed find that ther~ IS m ~me part of the transparent jelly a little portw_n wh1ch has more consistency than the rest; but still a stretch of fancy is needed before it can be called organization of any kind. So that, if a person were to be told that out of those jellies there were to be evolved bones, and muscles or organs of motion, and nerves for sensation, and arteries and veins for circulating blood, and lungs for breathing, and air tubes in the bones to ensure the same purpose upon emergency; and that there were-to be feet for running, or wading in the water, or swimming, or partially for all those purposes, according to the habits of some former organized beings, now dead or at a distance ; and wings for flight, and eyes, and nostrils, and ears, and a mouth armed with horny mandibles;· that further, the production was to have the very model of mechanical shape, for enabling it to make its way on the earth, across the waters, or through the air; and that it was to be clothed with plumage of the smoothest gloss, and the most brilliant colours ; and that it would, in the most unerring manner, select those substances best adapted for its purpose ; and by means of various sets of apparatus, each the very best fitted for accomplishing the end with the very least trouble, form them into the very substances of which its own organization were composed; and not only keep itself in perfect order and repair for its appointed tim.e, but become the source of future beings of the same kind, without number and without end, excepting from the bar and hinderance of external circumstances : if a person who was ignorant of eggs, and the results of hatching, were to be told that, or even a small part of it, it would utterly shake his belief in the testimony of the narrator. Nor would his doubt be the less if he were told that the being to come out of one egg would have the fleetness of an arrow and the strength of a giant; that the gripe of death would NO TWO ANIMALS ALIKE. 335 be in its talons, and the rending of destruction in its beak; that its eyes would be piercing, and its aim certain, even when it rushed like a thunderbolt from the upper regions of the sky-the scourge and terror of al1 the beings to be produced by the other eggs of the collection. So, also, if he were told that the production of another egg would, without any external cause which man could discover (except a cause presumed from the fact), make the two hemispheres of the earth resound with its songs, alternately in the opposite seasons of the year: or, that it were to pass away to a far distant country, without chart of the way, and without guide; and thence return with the return of the spring, to build its house under the eaves, to produce a new succession of eggs, to toil on the wing the livelong summer-day in catching flies for the nourishment of its young; and then, at the appointed time, again take its departure, again to return the harbinger and the pledge of summer: if he were told of that for the first time, he would abandon any of the ordinary matte:rs about which men busy themselves so much, and take . a long pilgrimage to see the wonderful creature, so that he might have fame and credit among his neighbours, as the fortunate traveller who had seen with his eyes the very wonder of the world. That, however, is only a little portion of what the animal world has to disclose, not to our laborious search, but of itself, of its own accord, if we would but be attentive and mark the disclosure. The general characters of the animal world are as numerous as the races, and the particular ones are as varied as the individuals, so that the transition from an~ one to any other one has the charm of novelty. Ammals, from the greater number of functions that 1 they perform, and the greater energy and celerity ' of their performance, have far more character than plan~s ; and though the character does Iiot perhaps admit of so great a change in the individual, it is far |