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Incubation   /ˌɪŋkjubˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Incubation

noun
1.
Maintaining something at the most favorable temperature for its development.
2.
(pathology) the phase in the development of an infection between the time a pathogen enters the body and the time the first symptoms appear.
3.
Sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body.  Synonym: brooding.



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"Incubation" Quotes from Famous Books



... does not go twice to the same nest to deposit her egg. What a curious exception is the case of the cuckoo to the instinctive love of their offspring observable in almost all birds! After the eggs are laid the parent bird has no further trouble with them; no period of incubation to bare the breast of the brooding bird; no anxiety about her young ones, as some idle, wanton lad hunts amongst the trees and bushes, destroys both nest and eggs, or tortures the helpless fledglings! "But, papa," said Willy, "how ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... by some psychologists is in direct opposition to this general law that disuse causes deterioration. It is usually stated something like this, that periods of incubation are necessary in acquiring skill, or that letting a function lie fallow results in greater skill at the end of that period, or briefly one learns to skate in summer and swim in winter. To some extent this is true, but as stated it is misleading. ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... questions. Olivier would lose heart: he would try not to let it be seen: but he thought he had made a mistake, and that the boy was thoroughly stupid. He could not see the frightful fevered travail in incubation that was going on in the inner depths of the boy's soul. Besides, he was a bad teacher, and was more fitted to sow the good seed at random in the fields than to weed the soil and plow the furrows. Christophe's presence only served to increase ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... the waves, on which it was made to float like a skiff. But as the turbulence of a storm would be likely to cause its destruction, Nature had gifted him with the extraordinary power of stilling the motions of the winds and waves, during the period of incubation. Hence the serene weather that accompanies the summer solstice was supposed to be occasioned by the benign influence of this bird, and the term "halcyon days" was applied to this period. It is remarkable that the fable should ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... where the robin built, the cleft in the branch of the young tree where the chaffinch had reared its dwelling—all rose up clear in his mind's eye, and led him back to the scenes of his boyhood at Callerton and Dewley Burn. The colour and number of the bird's eggs, the period of their incubation, the materials employed by them for the walls and lining of their nests, were described by him so vividly, and illustrated by such graphic anecdotes, that one of the party remarked that, if George Stephenson had not been the greatest engineer of his day, he might have been ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... (not but that there is an ancient custom of "hunting the wren" still kept up, we believe, in some parts of this country,) it is considered unlucky to kill a Swallow, or House-Martin. The King-fisher is the Halcyon of the ancients, who imagined that during the process of incubation by the female the sea remained unvexed by storms; hence "halcyon days." The feathers of this bird are employed by the Tartars for many superstitious purposes; they consider them amulets of priceless value, enabling them to inspire women with love. In more civilized ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various

... resembles that of a couple of butterflies, as they revolve about each other and rise vertically to a great height in the air. Again, like insects, they are undisturbed at the presence of man while feeding, or even when engaged in building and incubation; and like various solitary bees, wasps, &c., they frequently come close to a person walking or standing, to hover suspended in the air within a few inches of his face; and if then struck at they often, insect-like, return to circle round his head. All other birds, even those ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... the Rural is valuable, and so important a subject as artificial incubation cannot perhaps be made entirely plain to a novice in a few articles; but as interested parties have written for additional information, it may interest others to answer them here. Among the questions asked are: "Does the incubator described in the Rural dispense entirely with the use of a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... speak of the art practised through the medium, termed incubation, of curing diseases, it may be proper to say something previously on the interpretation of dreams through whose agency these events were said to ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... commercially, has been made by Robison[115] with his "culturing" method. Here the green coffee is washed with water, and then inoculated with selected strains of micro-organisms, such as Ochraeceus or Aspergillus Wintii. Incubation is then conducted for 6 to 7 days at 90 deg. F. and 85 percent relative humidity. Subsequent to this incubation, the coffee is stored in bins for about ten days; after which it is tumbled and scoured. With this process it is possible ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... the black forest soil along the streams' edges, and from the pebbled shores of every little lake; already the soft ice was afloat on pool and pond; muskrats swam; the eggs of the woodcock were beginning their chilly incubation; and in one sheltered spring-hole behind the greenhouse Malcourt discovered a solemn frog afloat. It takes only a single frog to ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... gaze of Astaroth, rushed into the antechamber, after bowing to the terrible old woman. He was moist from head to foot, as if under the incubation of ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... spot where the nilometer, or river guage, measures from day to day, and from year to year, the increasing or decreasing treasures of the stream, and landed at a village where thousands of eggs are made into chickens by the process of artificial incubation. ...
— An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids • Anthony Trollope

... were all of the feathered tribe, and the chief of these was the ganet, of which there were prodigious numbers, and it should seem that this is the time of their incubation, the females being all on their nests: these are places simply hollowed in the sand, there not being a single quadruped that could be found upon the island to disturb them. The people brought numbers of their eggs on board. Very large pigeons ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... that I must inform you that in neither case did I charge the sellers with having sent me diseased stock. On the contrary, as you should know, the incubation of hog cholera being nine days, I consulted the shipping dates of the animals and knew that they had ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... divided into four distinct periods, viz.: the period of incubation, the period of eruption, the period of efflorescence, and the period of desquamation; to which may be added: the ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... officials came on board, and to my surprise selected me alone among the passengers for quarantine. The explanation was that I had gone ashore at Corinto. So I was ordered to take up my abode during the period of incubation in the detention house, a building in an isolated position; there I was instructed, much to my relief, that I might go to town or anywhere else during daylight, but must, under severe penalty, be back and inside the protecting screens before ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... tempting morsel for his spouse's breakfast. A bird that can sing better than a warbling vireo, whose carmine breast is comparable only to the rich, red rose of June, who picks bugs from potato vines, singing chansons meanwhile and who is so good to his wife that he does a large share of the incubation, and takes largely upon himself the care of their children is surely a "rara avis" and worth having for a friend. He is a typical bird of June. His color matches the June roses, his songs are full and sweet and rich as the June days, and the eggs of his soberly dressed spouse are usually ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... the gathering darkness. Suddenly he paused, and listened. Strange sounds came across the water. It was, in fact, the princess laughing. Now there was something odd in her laugh, as I have already hinted, for the hatching of a real hearty laugh requires the incubation of gravity; and perhaps this was how the prince mistook the laughter for screaming. Looking over the lake, he saw something white in the water; and, in an instant, he had torn off his tunic, kicked off his sandals, and plunged in. He soon reached the white object, ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... penguins do. Feathers were scattered broadcast around each rookery. These result from the numerous fights which occur and are also partly derived from the bare patch of skin at the lower part of the abdomen which provides the necessary heat for incubation when the bird is sitting. Most of the birds had two eggs in a well-advanced stage of incubation, and it was a difficult task to find a sufficient number fresh enough for culinary purposes. Attached to each rookery was a pair of skua gulls, who swooped down and quickly ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... nests are constructed in the same manner as the preceding varieties and are located in similar localities. As do all the Grebes when leaving the nest, they cover the eggs with the damp rushes from around the base of the nest. This is probably for the purpose of assisting incubation during their absence, by the action of the sun's rays on the wet mass. As they are nearly always thus covered upon the approach of anyone, this may be done also as a protection from discovery. They lay from three to eight bluish white eggs with the usual chalky and ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... contains passages of brilliant and even poetical eloquence. The object of his work is to trace the germ through all its changes to the period of maturity; and the illustrations are principally drawn from the phenomena exhibited by eggs in the process of incubation, which he watched with great care, and has described with minuteness and fidelity. The microscope had not at that time the perfection it has since attained; and consequently Harvey's account of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... outlined images, which is markedly subjective and emotional, and of which modern music like Debussy's is a good example. But whatever may be the specific type of imagination involved, we find alike in inventor, scientist and artist the same general sequence of "germ, incubation, flowering and completion," and the same fundamental motor ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... but remains hunting for insects in the cavities and among the branches of the trees with the most assiduous caution. They hatch their young in holes, which they perforate in decayed trees with their sharp bills. If a person happens to come near their nests during the time of incubation, it vociferates most strenuously against the intrusion, while its feathers expand, its eyes sparkle with rage, and it darts from branch to branch with the most astonishing rapidity. It is frequently to be seen near our houses ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... have moved into the cities. The strength of the country-side is sobriety and slow incubation of the forces of life. Its vice is stupidity. The strength of the city is keen wittedness, versatility, quick response. Its vice is fickleness, morbidity, exhaustion. We have our great blanket sheet newspapers, representing a party, ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... through the gathering darkness. Suddenly he paused, and listened. Strange sounds came across the water. It was, in fact, the princess laughing. Now, there was something odd in her laugh, as I have already hinted; for the hatching of a real hearty laugh, requires the incubation of gravity; and, perhaps, this was how the prince mistook the laughter for screaming. Looking over the lake, he saw something white in the water; and, in an instant, he had torn off his tunic, kicked off his sandals, and plunged in. He soon reached the white object, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... and great civilizations, but there are moments when it must not be exhibited to the masses." There was never a conjuncture when the danger of such an exhibition was greater or more imminent than during the armistice on the Continent—for it was the period of incubation preceding the outbreak of the most malignant social disease to which civilized communities ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... that of disorder, which must have been of some duration, more or less, and is plainly implied to have been of considerable length, in the declaration that "the Spirit of the Lord moved"—literally, was brooding (a figure taken from the incubation of fowls)—"upon the face of the waters." But no portion of Scripture gives any intimation of the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... of Eggs The Wisdom of the Egyptians Principles of Incubation Moisture and Evaporation Ventilation—Carbon Dioxide Turning Eggs Cooling Eggs Searching for the "Open Sesame" of Incubation The Box Type of Incubator in Actual Use The ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... called in by the imagination to assist in marking the manner in which the bird reiterates and prolongs her soft note, as if herself delighting to listen to it, and participating of a still and quiet satisfaction, like that which may be supposed inseparable from the continuous process of incubation. 'His voice was buried among the trees,' a metaphor expressing the love of seclusion by which this Bird is marked; and characterising its note as not partaking of the shrill and the piercing, and therefore more easily deadened by the intervening ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... his head thoughtfully. If she had been through the violent illness of the parasite's incubation, she should now have one of the squeaking little degenerates in place of a brain. The fibers of the small animals grew slowly along the neural arcs, replacing each nerve cell, forming a junction at each synapse. There was reason to believe that the parasite preserved the memories that ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis

... 381. This breed is also figured by Albin in 1734 in his 'Nat. Hist. of Birds' volume 2 page 86.) It shows its prolonged domestication by almost incessantly laying eggs, like the fowls which are called everlasting layers. (8/4. F. Cuvier in 'Annales du Museum' tome 9 page 128 says that moulting and incubation alone stops these ducks laying. Mr. B.P. Brent makes a similar remark in the 'Poultry Chronicle' 1855 ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... she usually went to sleep; a white dove resting on the Word suggested to one's mind many a beautiful emblematic thought. These visits to me were paid most regularly when a nest was finished and the eggs were being hatched; she then shared the duties of incubation by turns with her mate. He would sit patiently for four hours on the nest, while Blanche spent that time with me; then, punctually at the right moment, she would wake up, and, lazily stretching her wings, would fly out at the open window to ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen

... main sea on one side, and parted from the land by a very narrow channel on the other. It has its name and its colour from the dung of innumerable sea-fowls, which in the Spring chuse this place as convenient for incubation, and have their eggs and their young taken in great abundance. One of the birds that frequent this rock has, as we were told, its body not larger than a duck's, and yet lays eggs as large as those of a goose. This ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... had subsisted, and even been strengthened, by the generation or support of republics. First, the Swiss republics grew under the guardianship of the French monarchy. The Dutch republics were hatched and cherished under the same incubation. Afterwards, a republican constitution was, under the influence of France, established in the empire against the pretensions of its chief. Even whilst the monarchy of France, by a series of wars and negotiations, and lastly by the treaties of Westphalia, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... not the chalazae, but the cicatricula. This Fabricius had looked upon as a blemish, a scar left by a broken peduncle. Harvey described this little cicatricula as expanding under the influence of incubation into a wider structure, which he called the eye of the egg, and at the same time separating into a clear and transparent part, in which later on, according to him, there appeared, as the first rudiment of the embryo, the heart, or punctum saliens, ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... purpose aforementioned. The note of the nightjar, on the other hand, is equally uttered by both sexes, and both also have the curious habit of repeatedly clapping the wings for several minutes together. They moreover share the business of incubation, taking day and night duty on the eggs, which, two in number, are laid on the bare ground without any pretence of a nest, and generally on open commons in the neighbourhood of patches of fern-brake. Like the owls, these birds sleep during the day ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo

... established and the following tests made: A mosquito-proof building of one room was completely divided by a wire screen from floor to ceiling. In one room fifteen mosquitoes that had previously bitten yellow fever patients and had undergone the proper period of incubation were liberated. In this room a non-immune exposed himself so that he was bitten by several of the insects. A little later the same day and again the next day the mosquitoes were allowed to feed on him for a few minutes. Five days later, ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... eggs and young during the first stages of their embryonic evolution. This bag is formed by two folds of the skin, one of which grows out from each side of the body, the free margins being firmly glued together in the middle by a natural exudation, while the eggs are undergoing incubation, but opening once more in the middle to let the little fish out as soon as the process ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... politics before that period—the inquiries, the exposures, the arraignments that took place—the constant hunt after Indian delinquency, in which Ministers joined no less keenly than the Opposition—and then compare all this with the tranquillity that has reigned, since the halcyon incubation of the Board of Control over the waters,—though we may allow the full share that actual reform and a better system of government may claim in this change, there is still but too much of it to be attributed to causes of a less elevated nature,—to the natural abatement of the watchfulness of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... their departure from the island before the commencement of winter, and proceed to the more congenial warmth of Africa, to return with the next spring. The causes assigned by naturalists for this peculiarity are, either a deficiency of food, or the want of a secure asylum for the incubation and nourishment of their young. Their migrations are generally performed in large companies, and, in the day, they follow a leader, which is occasionally changed. During the night, many of the tribes send forth a continual cry, to keep themselves together; although one would think ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... admitted the song to have a streak of genius; though he would pettishly and stupidly say, that our modern newspaper Press is able now to force genius for us twenty or so to the month, excluding Sundays-our short pauses for the incubation of it. Real rare genius was in that song, nothing forced; and exquisite melody; one of those melodies which fling gold chains about us and lead us off, lead us back into Eden. Victor hummed at bars of it on the drive homeward. His darlings ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... brood near the bottom, thus left without bees to protect it with animal heat, became chilled, and the consequence was diseased larvae." He then reasoned thus: "If the eggs of a fowl, at any time near the end of incubation, become chilled from any cause, it stops all further development. Bees are developed by continued heat, on the same principle, and a chill produces the same effect, &c.; afterwards, other swarms issued under precisely ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... incidents but nothing more, and that still others might develop into satisfactory short stories. The class is now asked to develop original plots. Since plots cannot be produced on demand, but require time for the mind to act subconsciously, the class practises, during the "period of incubation," the writing of dialogue. For these the teacher suggests a list of topics, although any student is free to substitute one of his own. Among the topics that have been used are: "Johnny goes with his mother to church for the first time," "Mrs. Hennessy is annoyed by the chickens of Mrs. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... incubation, seek the solitude of the Farallones, a group of desolate and weather-beaten rocks that tower out of the fog about thirty miles distant from the mouth of the harbor of San Francisco. Nothing can be more magnificently desolate than the aspect of these islands. Scarcely a ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... payment arrears and to raise new funds. The government's stabilization program - aimed at establishing realistic exchange rates, reasonable price stability, and a resumption of growth - requires considerable public administrative abilities and continued patience by consumers during a long incubation period. In 1991, buoyed by a recovery in mining and agriculture, the economy posted 6% growth, according to official figures. A large volume of illegal and quasi- legal economic activity is not captured ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Incubation was commonly practised at the temples of Isis and Serapis as it was afterward among the Greeks. This "temple sleep" was closely akin in its effects to hypnotism and was undoubtedly efficacious in the ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... hollows of trees, or never quit them, excepting in the night, or sit immediately that they have laid one or two eggs. It is also to be observed that of those species which build an exposed nest, and the females of which alone perform the duty of incubation, the colour of the female is much less bright than that of the male, and more in harmony with the objects by which she is surrounded during the period in which she sits upon her eggs. It would seem, therefore, that those ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various

... Henshaw. Some years ago, as it appears, a pair of ruby-throats built a nest within a few feet of Mr. Darwin's window and a little below it, so that they could be watched without fear of disturbing them. He remembers perfectly that the male fed the female during the entire period of incubation, "pumping the food down her throat." All this time, so far as could be discovered, the mother did not once leave the nest (in wonderful contrast with my bird of a year ago), and of course the father was never seen to take her place. Mr. Darwin cannot say that the male ever fed the young ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... together. To-day at noon they appear'd, but apparently either on business, or for a little limited exercise only. No wild frolic now, full of free fun and motion, up and down for an hour. Doubtless, now they have cares, duties, incubation responsibilities. The ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman



Words linked to "Incubation" :   tending, parturition, phase, giving birth, incubate, pathology, care, attention, birthing, stage, birth, aid, infection



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