"This bird remained for more than seven years in Holland and was then sent among other presents by the illustrious Maurice Prince of Orange to his Serene Majesty, our King James, in whose gardens it continued to live for a period of upwards of five years."
It has already been shown that Harvey was on a footing of something like intimacy with his master the King, whose artistic and scientific tastes are well known. This fact is again made clear by the following passages, in which Harvey followed his usual custom of showing to the King anything unusually curious. "I have seen a very small egg covered with a shell, contained within another larger egg, perfect in all respects and completely surrounded with a shell. An egg of this kind Fabricius calls an ovum centennium, and our housewives ascribe it to the cock. This egg I showed to his Serene Majesty King Charles, my most gracious master, in the presence of many persons. And the same year, in cutting up a large lemon, I found another perfect but very small lemon included within it, having a yellow rind like the other, and I hear that the same thing has frequently been seen in Italy." Speaking in another place of these eggs, he says: "Some eggs too are larger, others smaller; a few extremely small. These in Italy are commonly called centennia, and our country folks still believe that such eggs are laid by the cock, and that were they set they would produce basilisks. 'The vulgar,' says Fabricius, 'think that this small egg is the last that will be laid and that it comes as the hundredth in number, whence the name; that it has no yolk, though all the other parts are present--the chalazae, the albumen, the membranes, and the shell.'
"It was customary with his Serene Majesty, King Charles, after he had come to man's estate, to take the diversion of hunting almost every week, both for the sake of finding relaxation from graver cares and for his health. The chase was principally the buck and doe, and no prince in the world had greater herds of deer, either wandering in freedom through the wilds and forests or kept in parks and chases for this purpose. The game, during the three summer months, was the buck then fat and in season; and in the autumn and winter for the same length of time the doe. This gave me an opportunity of dissecting numbers of these animals almost every day during the whole of the season.... I had occasion, so often as I desired it, to examine and study all the parts ... because the great prince, whose physician I was, besides taking much pleasure in such inquiries and not disdaining to bear witness to my discoveries, was pleased in his kindness and munificence to order me an abundant supply of these animals, and repeated opportunities of examining their bodies." Speaking of the first rudiments of the heart, he says: "I have exhibited this point to his Serene Highness the King, still palpitating.... It was extremely minute indeed, and without the advantage of the sun's light falling upon it from the side, its tremulous motions were not to be perceived."