infancy. The embryos of quadrupeds in general, and of some other classes of animals, derive their nutriment for a certain time directly from the female, during which period of gestation the members of the infant creature are gradually developed. In the progress of that developement the principle of life becomes more and more active; till at last, having attained the full maturity that nature intended for it, the young is brought forth into the world a complete and living animal, bearing a perfect resemblance in all its members to the race of creatures from which it derived its origin, only of a smaller size. All those animals that bring forth their young after this manner are called viviparous, which word implies that the young, when separated from the mother, are obviously living crea

tures.

The young of all the other animals, which are large enough to attract the notice of mankind in general, are excluded from the mother in the form of an egg. All the creatures belonging to this clafs are said to be oviparous, or egg-bearing animals, the most conspicuous of which are fowls and birds of all sorts.

An egg is an object with which we are so familiar as to require no description in this place. Every one knows, that in its primitive state it discovers no appearance of animation whatever; nor could any one who had been accustomed to observe viviparous animals only, form an idea that a living creature could ever be produced from that stone-like ball. It is from experience alone then that we derive our ideas of the operations of nature, and not from instinct or analogy. If we had never seen an animal produced from

an egg, we should never have had the least conception that such a thing could have been effected. We should in that case have believed that all animals, when excluded from the female, must necefsarily be in a living state, and bear an exact resemblance to their parent race; but as we have seen from the earliest period of our remembrance that eggs may be made to produce living creatures, this does not surprise us in the smallest degree. May not the same power which originally willed that this striking difsimilarity should take place between the mode of procreation of viviparous and oviparous animals, have also willed that other creatures shall be formed with a faculty of producing their young in a manner totally different from either of these? If such a thing can be discovered then, it should certainly excite no sort of astonishment in us; it ought only to put us in mind of the limited nature of our own faculties, and of the infinite power of that great first cause, who can diversify his operations to infinity, while at the same time they are all so perfectly adapted to the place they were destined to occupy in this universe, as to answer that purpose, in as far as we are able to trace them, in the most perfect manner pofsible.

If a female of those viviparous animals, with which we are chiefly conversant, be carefully separated from the male, she will not only never produce any living animal of her own species, but no embryo of it will ever be discovered. This is different in oviparous creatures. Though the female be shut up with ever such care by herself, her eggs will be formed, and will gradually increase in magnitude till they attain their

full size, and be as regularly excluded from the female as in any other situation. The eggs thus produced are, to all appearance, perfect; they are only found to be destitute of the principle of life: nor can any art ever make such eggs produce a living creature. The difference between oviparous and viviparous animals is not, however, here so great as at first sight appears. We have already had occasion to take notice, that the young of viviparous animals, during the period of gestation, derive their nourishment directly from the mother; this cannot be so with the oviparous classes, seeing they are totally separated from the female; the egg, in short, is destined to perform the same office as the matrix of the mother, and must, of course, contain the rudiments of the infant creature susceptible of being gradually developed, and also food to sustain the young embryo till it hath attained its full perfection. Such eggs then as have been duly perfected contain the principle of life in them, though still in a dormant state. To call this into action, and in consequence thereof gradually to develope the members of the embryo, the procefs of incubation becomes necefsary. The parents are then impelled by the irresistible power of that invisible hand," in whom all things live and move, and have their being," to sit with a patient afsiduity, for a proper length of time, upon these eggs; and, by the genial heat which is thus produced, to bring into action the vital principle, and in due time to complete the infant creature in all its members. When it hath thus acquired the necefsary degree of strength to enable it to perform the vital functions, it bursts its confinement, and issues

forth a complete animal in the form of the parent race to which it belongs. It is then nearly in the same circumstances with the young of viviparous creatures at the period of their birth; it is weak, and stands in need of the fostering care of the parent, which the same unerring providence that hath directed all the steps by which it hath been brought thus far forward faileth not liberally to provide for it.

According to the destination of nature animals of the viviparous clafs are calculated, when full grown, to subsist upon food of various sorts; some to live wholly upon flesh, others upon grain, or herbs, or fruits of different sorts; but in their infant state, milk is the food appropriated for the whole: and, that this food may never fail to them, it is universally ordained that the young is no sooner born than milk flows in abundance into the members provided in the mother for the secretion of that nutritious fluid; and the infant searches for the teat almost as soon as it has drawn the breath of life, and knows perfectly at the first how to extract that fluid by means of suction, and thus to preserve its existence. From the oviparous class this kind of knowledge is totally withheld, because it was not intended that they should be thus subsisted: no milk is ever secreted by animals of this clafs: among these the young either gape with an undiscerning eagernefs at the call of the mother to receive the food that she shall provide for them, or they run with alacrity at her call to pick up what she lays before them; the mother being directed to cull, with care, those morsels that are best suited for the nourishment of the species, and to cherish and protect

them in the way best adapted to their nature respectively. The person who can observe all this, and not be able to perceive the superintendence of a beneficent wisdom influencing the whole, must have the powers of his understanding totally obliterated, and his mind inveloped in impenetrable blindness.

The eggs of birds in general are covered with a thin flexible skin, which is itself protected by a hard shell, consisting of calcareous matter, which differ in size, colour and form, in each species; each variety, however, of the species preserving as constant an uniformity in regard to its egg through every individual, as there is observed to take place among the individual animals themselves: but among the lefser orders of creatures, insects especially, which are, for the most part, oviparous, the eggs are usually covered only with a flexible film, and differ from those above described in several other particulars that deserve to be adverted to; as every variation exhibits proofs of wisdom and design written in such legible characters, that he who runs may read them.

The life of insects in general in their perfect state is so short, that the parent has seldom an opportunity of seeing its living offspring: they therefore neither generate milk like viviparous animals, nor are they impelled, like birds, to sit upon their eggs to bring the young to perfection; but in place of this, the all-directing power hath endowed each variety with the astonishing faculty of being able to perceive what substance is fitted to afford the most proper food for its young, though that food is, for the most part, so totally different from that which the parent itself could