Mike Smith wrote:

>(to be read with a good dose of humor):
>Well clearly the egg came first! Eggs evolved long before birds,
>depending on how you want to define it. Amniotic eggs first arriving with
>reptilians, bird eggs evolved long before the galliforms. Unless you
>limit it to a chicken vs. chicken egg question, then the chicken came
>first, since the chicken embryo was formed prior to the eggs formation
>inside the hen. But I'm sure there is a faction of chickens which
>vehemently oppose this view, saying the chicken doesn't really exist until
>it's hatched. No doubt chicken society is split over this issue, of
>whether the chicken is a chicken when it's still in the egg.

But wouldn't those same gallinaceous philosophers ask whether the egg is an
egg when it's still in the chicken?

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416