It seems to be generally accepted that experimenting in ovo on the chick during the early stages of development (up to about 48 hours) is fraught with the greatest difficulty. After about this time no serious technical problems arise and a high proportion of successful results can be expected. It is natural to ask why there should be this change-over from extreme difficulty to reasonable simplicity. New (1955) attributed to this ‘inaccessibility of the chick embryo in the egg’ the invention of his own and many other in vitro methods during the last 30 years. There is no doubt that, when short-term experiments only are required, in vitro methods will probably always be preferred. But all in vitro methods suffer from the disadvantage that the embryo cannot be expected to survive for more than 48 hours or so after explantation.
Identification of Novel Hemangioblast Genes in the Early Chick Embryo