Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/271

 abroad, a fœtus is produced; whence such animals are called oviparous or vermiparous. Viviparous animals are so entitled because they retain and cherish their conception in their interior, until from thence the fœtus comes forth into the light completely formed and alive.

"Nature," says Fabricius, "was first solicitous about the place [where generation should proceed], which she determined should be either within or without the animal: within she ordained the uterus; without, the ovum: in the uterus the blood and seminal fluid engendering; in the ovum, however, the fluids or elements of which it consists supplying pabulum for the production of the fœtus."

Now, whatever is procreated of the semen properly so called originates and is perfected either in the same place or in different places. All viviparous creatures derive their origin and have their completion in the uterus itself; but oviparous animals, as they have their beginning within their parents, and there become ova, so is it beyond their parents that they are perfected into the fœtal state. Among oviparous animals, however, there are some that retain their ova till such time as they are mature and perfect; such as all the feathered tribes, reptiles and serpents. Others, again, extrude their semina in a state still immature and imperfect, and it is without the body of the parent that increase, maturity, and perfection, are attained. Under this head we range frogs, many kinds of fishes, crustaceous, molluscous, and testaceous animals, the ova of which, when first extruded, are but beginnings, sketches, yelks which afterwards surround themselves with whites, and attracting, concocting, and attaching nutriment to themselves, are changed into perfect seeds or eggs. Such also are the semina of insects (called worms by Aristotle), which, imperfect on their extrusion and in the beginning, seek food for themselves, upon which they are nourished, and grow from a grub into a chrysalis: from an imperfect into a perfect egg or seed. Birds, however, and the rest of the oviparous tribes, lay perfect eggs; whence without the