He distinguished two parts in the matrix of a hen, the one superior and the other inferior. The superior he calls the Ovarium, which is properly no other than a cluster of small yellow eggs of a round form, varying in size from the bigness of a mustard-seed to that of a large nut or medlar. These small eggs are fastened together by one common pellicle, and form a body which nearly resembles a bunch of grapes. The smallest of these eggs are white, and they take another colour in proportion as they increase.
Having examined these eggs immediately after the communication of the cock, he did not perceive any remarkable difference, nor any of the male semen in any one of these eggs; he therefore supposed that every egg, and the ovarium itself, became fruitful by a subtle spirit, which came from the semen of the male; and he says, that in order to secure this fecundating spirit, nature has placed at the external orifice of the vagina of birds a kind of net-work or membrane, which permits, like a valve, the entrance of this seminal spirit, but at the same time prevents it from re-issuing or evaporating.
When the egg is loosened from the common pellicle, it descends by degrees through a winding passage into the internal part of the matrix. This passage is filled with a liquor nearly similar to the white of an egg; it is also in this part that the eggs begin to be surrounded with this white liquor, with the membrane which occasions it, the two ligaments (_chalazæ_) which passes over the white, and connects it with the yolk and shell, which are formed in a very short time before they are laid. These ligaments, according to Fabricius, is the part of the egg fecundated by the seminal spirit of the male; and it is here where the foetus first begins to form. The egg is not only the true matrix, that is to say, the place of the formation of the chick, but it is from the egg all generation depends. The egg produces it as the agent: it supplies both the matter and the organs; the ligaments are the substance of formation; the white and the yolk are the nutriment, and the seminal spirit of the male is the efficient cause. This spirit communicates to the ligaments at first an alterative faculty, afterwards a formative, and lastly the power of augmentation, &c.