Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er With untired gaze the immeasurable fount Ebullient with creative Deity!

"Gin ye hae your appetite wi' you we'll eat, Mr. Montagu, for I'm a wee thingie hungry my nainsell (myself).

Or was the opposite true—a duck was created with an inherent element of duckiness that informed its growth from the egg itself?

He also mentions the property of cleavage of the specular stone (lapis specularis): 'The specular stone, which deserves also to be called a stone, is sectile (sectilis) and can be cut into slices as thin as can be desired....