Sic enim et biceps nascetur serpens, [226] et animal omne, quod ovo excluditur: si tale evenerit, non mediocris erit admirationis, saepius enim monstra in prolificis animalibus, et multiparis, quam in minus foecundis, et {imperfectioribus} <in perfectioribus> animalibus nascuntur: in aliis vero facilitas generationis pr<a>evalet: unde in vilioribus animalibus facilius monstra {proveniunt} <prodeunt>, quam in nobilibus. Haec itaque omnia Porta[1], qui etiam docet[2], quomodo Gallus, vel capus in mortuae, vel educere pullos Gallinae nolentis locum succedat. Iubet autem illi ostendi pullos, et blande manibus dorsum pertractando praeberi cibum, ut manibus edere assuescat, et cicur fiat. Mox pectus deplumando urticis perfricari atque ita paucis interiectis horis adeo optime pullos recepturum promittit, et cibum eis exhibiturum, ut vix unquam mater Gallina tale fecerit. Verum ipsemet Aristoteles[3] Gallos nonnullos visos esse testatur, qui cum forte faemina interiisset, ipsi officio matris fungerentur, pullos ductando, fovendo, educando, ita ne de caetero, vel cucu<r>rire, vel coire appeterent. Et Aelianus[4] Galli laudes prosequens{;}<,> Matrice Gallina, <i>nquit, extincta, ipse incubat; et pullos ex ovis excludit, ac tum silentio utitur. Idem etiam testatur Plinius[5], Narrantur, inquiens, et mortua Gallina mariti earum visi succedentes invicem, et reliqua foetae more facientes, abstinentesque se a cantu. Quae cum ita sint, Gallos aliquando absque {homiuum} <hominum> opera, Gallinarum officio functos fuisse manifesto constat.

In fact in this way also two-headed snake will be born and any animal hatching from an egg: if such an event will take place it is a subject of no little admiration, for monstrosities are born more often among prolific and giving birth to many young animals than among less fecund and more perfect animals: for in the former ones the facility of generation prevails: hence among lower rank animals monstrosities come forth more easily than among higher rank animals. All this is referred by Giambattista Della Porta, who also inform us how a rooster or a capon takes the place of a dead hen or of one who is unwilling to rear chicks. He urges the chicks be shown him and food be offered him while his back is stroked gently by hands, so that he gets accustomed to eat from hands and becomes tame. Next, in removing the feathers from his chest he is rubbed with nettles and he assures that thus after a few hours he will accept so properly the chicks, and that he will show them the food, that scarcely any mother hen has ever behaved in such a way. Truly Aristotle himself reports that some roosters have been seen who, when by chance the female had died, assumed the duties of the mother in leading, warming, and rearing the chicks, so that they not bother about other things, neither crowing nor copulating. And Aelian, going on with the praise of the rooster, says: When a laying hen dies, he himself incubates, and hatches out the chicks from eggs, and at that time he keeps silent. Also Pliny testifies the same when saying: They say that when the hen is dead their males have been seen to relieve her and to do the remaining things like a female with chicks and to abstain from crowing. Since these are the facts, it clearly follows that sometimes roosters, without human intervention, took on the task of hens.

Quod si vero nec Gallina nec Gallus excubare ova velint, nondum desperandum est: nam praeterquam quod uterque immutari possit: possunt etiam in primis ab homine perfici, teste Plinio[6], qui Liviam Augustam ait ovum in sinu fovendo exclusisse, ut postea dicemus, et ante etiam diximus[7], indeque fortasse nuper inventum esse, ut ova in calido loco imposita paleis igne modico foverentur, homine versante pariter, ut stato tempore illinc erumperet foetus. Sed vetus Aristotelis praeceptum est, si aut tempus sit bene temperatum, aut locus in quo ova manent, tepidus, non avium tantum ova concoqui sine parentis incubitu, sed quadruped<i>um oviparorum etiam. Et alibi[8] ita scribit: Incubitu avium ova excludi naturae ratio est: non tamen ita solum ova aperiuntur, sed etiam sponte in terra, ut in Aegypto obruta fimo pullitiem procreant.

But if neither hen nor rooster wish to incubate eggs, one must not despair: for, beyond the fact that they can change places each other, first of all also a human being can perform this task, according to Pliny, who says Livia Drusilla - or Julia Augusta - hatched an egg by warming it in her bosom, as I shall say later and as I also said before, and that perhaps hence recently it has been discovered how eggs placed in a warm place upon straw are warmed up with little fire, while a man is turning them at the same time, so that the fetus comes out at the stated time. But it is an old advice of Aristotle that, if the season is very mild or the place in which eggs lie is lukewarm, not only the eggs of the birds come to maturity without the incubation of the parent, but also those of quadruped oviparous animals. And elsewhere he writes thus: It is a rule of nature that eggs of birds hatch by incubation: but eggs open not only in this manner, but also spontaneously in the earth, as in Egypt where they give birth to a clutch of chicks after they have been covered up by dung.

Cuius rei Diodorus Siculus[9] etiam meminit his verbis: Quaedam suo studio adinventa sunt, ut qui (loquitur autem de Aegyptiis) aves, aut Anseres nutriunt, praeter † earum, quae apud alios homines habentur procreandi nomina, ut in numerum dictu mirabilem avium evadant: non enim ova incubant aves, sed ipsi ingenio, et naturali arte educant foetus.

Diodorus Siculus also mentions this fact by these words: Certain things have been discovered thanks to their own endeavor, as of those (anyway he is speaking of Egyptians) who raise hens, or geese, besides [...] those, which among other men are thought methods of reproduction, so that they have as result a number of birds extraordinary to say: for don’t are the hens incubating eggs, but they themselves hatch chicks by their talent and natural cleverness.

De eisdem populis ita Paulus Iovius[10]: Apud Aegyptios magna copia est pullorum Gallinaceorum. Nam apud illos Gallinae sua ova non incubant: sed ea in clibanis, tepore sensim adhibito, ita foventur, ut mirabili arte compendioque pulli intra paucos dies progignantur, simul et educantur, quos illi non numero, sed mensura venales habent. Modiolum statuunt sine fundo, quem ut compleverint, tollunt. Et Tragus denique, In Aegypto, inquit, circa Alcairum ova arte excluduntur: clibanum parant cum multis foraminibus, quibus ova diversa, Gallinarum, Anserum et aliarum avium imponunt, tum fimo calido integunt clibanum, et si opus fuerit, ignem circumque faciunt, sic {ovo sua} <ova suo> quaeque tempore maturescunt.

Paolo Giovio writes about the same peoples as follows: Among Egyptians there is a large abundance of chickens. For among them the hens do not incubate their eggs: but in ovens, with warmth used moderately, they are so warmed that with admirable ability and time’s shortening within a few days the chicks are hatched, and at the same time they are raised, and they think that they can be marketed not according to the number but to the size. They set up a bucket without bottom which they take away when they filled it up. And finally Tragus - Hieronymus Bock - says: In Egypt in neighborhoods of Cairo eggs are hatched with cleverness: they prepare an oven with many openings on which they place different sorts of eggs, of hens, geese and other birds, then they cover the oven with warm dung, and if there is need, they light a fire all around, so each egg comes to maturity at its proper time.

Verum in eo Iovius, et Tragus a Diodoro, et Aristotele discrepant, quod hi nulla clibani facta mentione, ova tantum fimo obrupta pullitiem procreare dicant: quare dicendum esset Aegyptios nunc diverso modo, quam solebant olim, pullos excludere, cum tamen talis exclusio celeriter absolveretur, ut vel ex hoc colligo, quod, ut Aristoteles pariter testis est, quidam potator Syracusis, ovis sub storea in terra positis, tamdiu potaret, donec ova foetum ederent. Iam vero, et cum in vasis quibusdam tepidis essent coniecta sponte sua pullos edidisse, idem Aristoteles[11] author est.

Indeed in this regard Giovio and Tragus disagree with Diodorus and Aristotle because without any mention of an oven they say that eggs covered only with dung give birth to a clutch of chicks: therefore it should be said that the Egyptians now hatch out chicks in a different manner than they formerly used, and that such a hatching comes at end quickly, like I gather from the fact that, as also Aristotle testifies, at Syracuse a drunkard who, after he placed eggs in earth under a mat, was going on with drinking until eggs didn’t give birth to the fetus. Aristotle himself writes that the eggs hatched out chicks by themselves even when placed in some warm vessels.

Si Gallina non incubet, inquit Democritus, hac industria complures habebis pullos. Qua die incubanti Gallinae ova subijcis, eadem stercus Gallinaceum accipiens, idipsum contere, cribraque ac denique in vasa inijce ventricosa, pennas illi{s} Gallinarum circumpone. Post haec autem figura recta imponito ova, sic ut pars mucronata superne tendat, ac dein rursus ex eodem fimo tandiu illis inspergito, donec undique inducta videantur. At ibi duos, aut tres dies primos sic intacta esse ova permiseris, singulis postea diebus illa convertito, cavens ne contingantur mutuo, ut videlicet ex aequo incalescant. Post vigesimam autem diem, dum sub Gallina ova excludi incipiunt, invenies ea, quae in alveis {suut} <sunt>, circumfracta. Ob quam nimirum causam etiam inscribunt diem, qua supponuntur, ne dierum numerus ignoretur. Vigesima itaque die putamen extrahens, pullos in cophinum conijcito, eos alens delicatissime. Ascisce etiam Gallinam, quae {modorabitur} <moderabitur> omnia. Haec Democritus, Andrea a {Lucana} <Lacuna> interprete, qui Graecam vocem γάστρας vasa ventricosa interpretatur: Cornarius ventriculos: Hieronymus Cardanus, qui hunc locum in libros suos de subtilitate transcripsit, pulvinaria, his verbis: Pulvinaria duo reple stercore Gallinarum tenuissime trito: inde plumas Gallinarum annecte consuendo utrique molles, ac densas. Ova vero capite tenuiore supra extante, colloca super alterum pulvinar. Deinde reliquum superpone in loco calido, permitteque immota duobus diebus: post vero ad vigesimam usque diem, illa sic verte, ut undique aequaliter foveantur: inde stata [227] die, quae iuxta vigesimam primam est, pipillantes iam ex ovo sensim educito.

If a hen does not incubate, Bolos of Mendes says, you will have many chicks by the following job. On the day when you place the eggs under an incubating hen, on the same day take some chicken dung, crumble and sieve it, and then place it in bellied pots and put hen feathers all around the dung. After this, place over it the eggs upright so that their pointed ends are upturned, and in addition sprinkle them with the same dung until they seem to be wholly covered. But allow the eggs to remain this way untouched for first two or three days, then on each day thereafter turn the eggs over, taking care that they do not touch each other, of course so that they may be warmed evenly. After the twentieth day, when eggs under a hen begin to hatch, you will search the eggs cracked all around laying in the hollow pots. Just for this reason they also write down the day on which they are placed for incubation, so that the number of days is not unknown. Therefore on the twentieth day take off the egg shells, put the chicks into a basket, and nourish them with very minute feed. Also bring in a hen who will supervise everything. These are the words of Bolos of Mendes, as interpreted by Andrés Laguna, who translates the Greek word gástras - large bellied pots - with vasa ventricosa: Janus Cornarius with ventriculos, bellies: Gerolamo Cardano, who transcribed this passage in his books De subtilitate, with cushions, and by these words: Fill two cushions with crumbled hen’s dung: then by sewing fasten on both soft and thick hen’s feathers. Upon either cushion place the eggs but with the sharper end sticking out upward. Then place over it the other one in a warm place and let them not be moved for two days: then until the twentieth day turn them in such a way that they are warmed evenly on all sides: afterwards at the stated day, corresponding approximately to the twenty-first, you will bring carefully the already peeping ones out of the egg.