No More Learning

There are on record
cases of mules living to the age of eighty, as did one in Athens at
the time of the building of the temple; this mule on account of its
age was let go free, but continued to assist in dragging burdens,
and would go side by side with the other draught-beasts and
stimulate them to their work; and in consequence a public decree was
passed forbidding any baker driving the creature away from his
bread-tray. The she-mule grows old more slowly than the mule. Some
assert that the she-mule menstruates by the act of voiding her
urine, and that the mule owes the prematurity of his decay to his
habit of smelling at the urine. So much for the modes of generation in
connexion with these animals.

25

Breeders and trainers can distinguish between young and old
quadrupeds. If, when drawn back from the jaw, the skin at once goes
back to its place, the animal is young; if it remains long wrinkled
up, the animal is old.

26

The camel carries its young for ten months, and bears but one at
a time and never more; the young camel is removed from the mother when
a year old. The animal lives for a long period, more than fifty years.
It bears in spring-time, and gives milk until the time of the next
conception. Its flesh and milk are exceptionally palatable. The milk
is drunk mixed with water in the proportion of either two to one or
three to one.

27

The elephant of either sex is fitted for breeding before
reaching the age of twenty. The female carries her young, according to
some accounts, for two and a half years; according to others, for
three years; and the discrepancy in the assigned periods is due to the
fact that there are never human eyewitnesses to the commerce between
the sexes. The female settles down on its rear to cast its young,
and obviously suffers greatly during the process. The young one,
immediately after birth, sucks the mother, not with its trunk but with
the mouth; and can walk about and see distinctly the moment it is
born.

28

The wild sow submits to the boar at the beginning of winter, and
in the spring-time retreats for parturition to a lair in some district
inaccessible to intrusion, hemmed in with sheer cliffs and chasms
and overshadowed by trees. The boar usually remains by the sow for
thirty days. The number of the litter and the period gestation is
the same as in the case of the domesticated congener. The sound of the
grunt also is similar; only that the sow grunts continually, and the
boar but seldom. Of the wild boars such as are castrated grow to the
largest size and become fiercest: to which circumstance Homer
alludes when he says:-

'He reared against him a wild castrated boar: it was not like a
food-devouring brute, but like a forest-clad promontory. '

Wild boars become castrated owing to an itch befalling them in
early life in the region of the testicles, and the castration is
superinduced by their rubbing themselves against the trunks of trees.

29

The hind, as has been stated, submits to the stag as a rule only
under compulsion, as she is unable to endure the male often owing to
the rigidity of the penis. However, they do occasionally submit to the
stag as the ewe submits ram; and when they are in heat the hinds avoid
one another. The stag is not constant to one particular hind, but
after a while quits one and mates with others. The breeding time is
after the rising of Arcturus, during the months of Boedromion and
Maimacterion. The period of gestation lasts for eight months.
Conception comes on a few days after intercourse; and a number of
hinds can be impregnated by a single male. The hind, as a rule,
bears but one fawn, although instances have been known of her
casting two. Out of dread of wild beasts she casts her young by the
side of the high-road. The young fawn grows with rapidity.
Menstruation occurs at no other time with the hind; it takes place
only after parturition, and the substance is phlegm-like.

The hind leads the fawn to her lair; this is her place of
refuge, a cave with a single inlet, inside which she shelters
herself against attack.

Fabulous stories are told concerning the longevity of the
animal, but the stories have never been verified, and the brevity of
the period of gestation and the rapidity of growth in the fawn would
not lead one to attribute extreme longevity to this creature.

In the mountain called Elaphoeis or Deer Mountain, which is in
Arginussa in Asia Minor-the place, by the way, where Alcibiades was
assassinated-all the hinds have the ear split, so that, if they
stray to a distance, they can be recognized by this mark; and the
embryo actually has the mark while yet in the womb of the mother.

The hind has four teats like the cow. After the hinds have
become pregnant, the males all segregate one by one, and in
consequence of the violence of their sexual passions they keep each
one to himself, dig a hole in the ground, and bellow from time to
time; in all these particulars they resemble the goat, and their
foreheads from getting wetted become black, as is also the case with
the goat. In this way they pass the time until the rain falls, after
which time they turn to pasture. The animal acts in this way owing
to its sexual wantonness and also to its obesity; for in summer-time
it becomes so exceptionally fat as to be unable to run: in fact at
this period they can be overtaken by the hunters that pursue them on
foot in the second or third run; and, by the way, in consequence of
the heat of the weather and their getting out of breath they always
make for water in their runs. In the rutting season, the flesh of
the deer is unsavoury and rank, like the flesh of the he-goat. In
winter-time the deer becomes thin and weak, but towards the approach
of the spring he is at his best for running. When on the run the
deer keeps pausing from time to time, and waits until his pursuer
draws upon him, whereupon he starts off again. This habit appears
due to some internal pain: at all events, the gut is so slender and
weak that, if you strike the animal ever so softly, it is apt to break
asunder, though the hide of the animal remains sound and uninjured.

30

Bears, as has been previously stated, do not copulate with the
male mounting the back of the female, but with the female lying down
under the male. The she-bear goes with young for thirty days. She
brings forth sometimes one cub, sometimes two cubs, and at most
five. Of all animals the newly born cub of the she bear is the
smallest in proportion to the size of the mother; that is to say, it
is larger than a mouse but smaller than a weasel. It is also smooth
and blind, and its legs and most of its organs are as yet
inarticulate. Pairing takes Place in the month of Elaphebolion, and
parturition about the time for retiring into winter quarters; about
this time the bear and the she-bear are at the fattest. After the
she-bear has reared her young, she comes out of her winter lair in the
third month, when it is already spring. The female porcupine, by the
way, hibernates and goes with young the same number of days as the
she-bear, and in all respects as to parturition resembles this animal.
When a she-bear is with young, it is a very hard task to catch her.

31

It has already been stated that the lion and lioness copulate
rearwards, and that these animals are opisthuretic. They do not
copulate nor bring forth at all seasons indiscriminately, but once
in the year only. The lioness brings forth in the spring, generally
two cubs at a time, and six at the very most; but sometimes only
one. The story about the lioness discharging her womb in the act of
parturition is a pure fable, and was merely invented to account for
the scarcity of the animal; for the animal is, as is well known, a
rare animal, and is not found in many countries. In fact, in the whole
of Europe it is only found in the strip between the rivers Achelous
and Nessus. The cubs of the lioness when newly born are exceedingly
small, and can scarcely walk when two months old. The Syrian lion
bears cubs five times: five cubs at the first litter, then four,
then three, then two, and lastly one; after this the lioness ceases to
bear for the rest of her days. The lioness has no mane, but this
appendage is peculiar to the lion. The lion sheds only the four
so-called canines, two in the upper jaw and two in the lower; and it
sheds them when it is six months old.

32

The hyena in colour resembles the wolf, but is more shaggy,
and is furnished with a mane running all along the spine. What is
recounted concerning its genital organs, to the effect that every
hyena is furnished with the organ both of the male and the female,
is untrue. The fact is that the sexual organ of the male hyena
resembles the same organ in the wolf and in the dog; the part
resembling the female genital organ lies underneath the tail, and does
to some extent resemble the female organ, but it is unprovided with
duct or passage, and the passage for the residuum comes underneath it.
The female hyena has the part that resembles the organ of the male,
and, as in the case of the male, has it underneath her tail,
unprovided with duct or passage; and after it the passage for the
residuum, and underneath this the true female genital organ. The
female hyena has a womb, like all other female animals of the same
kind. It is an exceedingly rare circumstance to meet with a female
hyena. At least a hunter said that out of eleven hyenas he had caught,
only one was a female.

33

Hares copulate in a rearward posture, as has been stated, for
the animal is opisthuretic. They breed and bear at all seasons,
superfoetate during pregnancy, and bear young every month. They do not
give birth to their young ones all together at one time, but bring
them forth at intervals over as many days as the circumstances of each
case may require. The female is supplied with milk before parturition;
and after bearing submits immediately to the male, and is capable of
conception while suckling her young. The milk in consistency resembles
sow's milk. The young are born blind, as is the case with the
greater part Of the fissipeds or toed animals.

34

The fox mounts the vixen in copulation, and the vixen bears
young like the she-bear; in fact, her young ones are even more
inarticulately formed. Before parturition she retires to sequestered
places, so that it is a great rarity for a vixen to be caught while
pregnant. After parturition she warms her young and gets them into
shape by licking them. She bears four at most at a birth.

35

The wolf resembles the dog in regard to the time of conception and
parturition, the number of the litter, and the blindness of the
newborn young. The sexes couple at one special period, and the
female brings forth at the beginning of the summer. There is an
account given of the parturition of the she-wolf that borders on the
fabulous, to the effect that she confines her lying-in to within
twelve particular days of the year. And they give the reason for
this in the form of a myth, viz. that when they transported Leto in so
many days from the land of the Hyperboreans to the island of Delos,
she assumed the form of a she-wolf to escape the anger of Here.
Whether the account be correct or not has not yet been verified; I
give it merely as it is currently told. There is no more of truth in
the current statement that the she-wolf bears once and only once in
her lifetime.

The cat and the ichneumon bear as many young as the dog, and
live on the same food; they live about six years. The cubs of the
panther are born blind like those of the wolf, and the female bears
four at the most at one birth. The particulars of conception are the
same for the thos, or civet, as for the dog; the cubs of the animal
are born blind, and the female bears two, or three, or four at a
birth. It is long in the body and low in stature; but not withstanding
the shortness of its legs it is exceptionally fleet of foot, owing
to the suppleness of its frame and its capacity for leaping.

36

There is found in Syria a so-called mule. It is not the same as
the cross between the horse and ass, but resembles it just as a wild
ass resembles the domesticated congener, and derives its name from the
resemblance. Like the wild ass, this wild mule is remarkable for its
speed. The animals of this species interbreed with one another; and
a proof of this statement may be gathered from the fact that a certain
number of them were brought into Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces, the
father of Pharnabazus, and the animal is there still. The number
originally introduced was nine, and there are three there at the
present day.

37

The phenomena of generation in regard to the mouse are the most
astonishing both for the number of the young and for the rapidity of
recurrence in the births. On one occasion a she-mouse in a state of
pregnancy was shut up by accident in a jar containing millet-seed, and
after a little while the lid of the jar was removed and upwards of one
hundred and twenty mice were found inside it.

The rate of propagation of field mice in country places, and the
destruction that they cause, are beyond all telling. In many places
their number is so incalculable that but very little of the
corn-crop is left to the farmer; and so rapid is their mode of
proceeding that sometimes a small farmer will one day observe that
it is time for reaping, and on the following morning, when he takes
his reapers afield, he finds his entire crop devoured. Their
disappearance is unaccountable: in a few days not a mouse will there
be to be seen. And yet in the time before these few days men fail to
keep down their numbers by fumigating and unearthing them, or by
regularly hunting them and turning in swine upon them; for pigs, by
the way, turn up the mouse-holes by rooting with their snouts. Foxes
also hunt them, and the wild ferrets in particular destroy them, but
they make no way against the prolific qualities of the animal and
the rapidity of its breeding. When they are super-abundant, nothing
succeeds in thinning them down except the rain; but after heavy
rains they disappear rapidly.

In a certain district of Persia when a female mouse is dissected
the female embryos appear to be pregnant. Some people assert, and
positively assert, that a female mouse by licking salt can become
pregnant without the intervention of the male.

Mice in Egypt are covered with bristles like the hedgehog. There
is also a different breed of mice that walk on their two hind-legs;
their front legs are small and their hind-legs long; the breed is
exceedingly numerous. There are many other breeds of mice than are
here referred to.

Book VII

1

As to Man's growth, first within his mother's womb and afterward
to old age, the course of nature, in so far as man is specially
concerned, is after the following manner. And, by the way, the
difference of male and female and of their respective organs has
been dealt with heretofore. When twice seven years old, in the most of
cases, the male begins to engender seed; and at the same time hair
appears upon the pubes, in like manner, so Alcmaeon of Croton remarks,
as plants first blossom and then seed. About the same time, the
voice begins to alter, getting harsher and more uneven, neither shrill
as formerly nor deep as afterward, nor yet of any even tone, but
like an instrument whose strings are frayed and out of tune; and it is
called, by way of by-word, the bleat of the billy-goat. Now this
breaking of the voice is the more apparent in those who are making
trial of their sexual powers; for in those who are prone to
lustfulness the voice turns into the voice of a man, but not so in the
continent. For if a lad strive diligently to hinder his voice from
breaking, as some do of those who devote themselves to music, the
voice lasts a long while unbroken and may even persist with little
change. And the breasts swell and likewise the private parts, altering
in size and shape. (And by the way, at this time of life those who try
by friction to provoke emission of seed are apt to experience pain
as well as voluptuous sensations. ) At the same age in the female,
the breasts swell and the so-called catamenia commence to flow; and
this fluid resembles fresh blood. There is another discharge, a
white one, by the way, which occurs in girls even at a very early age,
more especially if their diet be largely of a fluid nature; and this
malady causes arrest of growth and loss of flesh. In the majority of
cases the catamenia are noticed by the time the breasts have grown
to the height of two fingers' breadth. In girls, too, about this
time the voice changes to a deeper note; for while in general the
woman's voice is higher than the man's, so also the voices of girls
are pitched in a higher key than the elder women's, just as the
boy's are higher than the men's; and the girls' voices are shriller
than the boys', and a maid's flute is tuned sharper than a lad's.

Girls of this age have much need of surveillance. For then in
particular they feel a natural impulse to make usage of the sexual
faculties that are developing in them; so that unless they guard
against any further impulse beyond that inevitable one which their
bodily development of itself supplies, even in the case of those who
abstain altogether from passionate indulgence, they contract habits
which are apt to continue into later life. For girls who give way to
wantonness grow more and more wanton; and the same is true of boys,
unless they be safeguarded from one temptation and another; for the
passages become dilated and set up a local flux or running, and
besides this the recollection of pleasure associated with former
indulgence creates a longing for its repetition.

Some men are congenitally impotent owing to structural defect;
and in like manner women also may suffer from congenital incapacity.
Both men and women are liable to constitutional change, growing
healthier or more sickly, or altering in the way of leanness,
stoutness, and vigour; thus, after puberty some lads who were thin
before grow stout and healthy, and the converse also happens; and
the same is equally true of girls. For when in boy or girl the body
is loaded with superfluous matter, then, when such superfluities are
got rid of in the spermatic or catamenial discharge, their bodies
improve in health and condition owing to the removal of what had acted
as an impediment to health and proper nutrition; but in such as are of
opposite habit their bodies become emaciated and out of health, for
then the spermatic discharge in the one case and the catamenial flow
in the other take place at the cost of natural healthy conditions.

Furthermore, in the case of maidens the condition of the breasts
is diverse in different individuals, for they are sometimes quite
big and sometimes little; and as a general rule their size depends
on whether or not the body was burthened in childhood with superfluous
material. For when the signs of womanhood are nigh but not come, the
more there be of moisture the more will it cause the breasts to swell,
even to the bursting point; and the result is that the breasts
remain during after-life of the bulk that they then acquired. And
among men, the breasts grow more conspicuous and more like to those of
women, both in young men and old, when the individual temperament is
moist and sleek and the reverse of sinewy, and all the more among
the dark-complexioned than the fair.

At the outset and till the age of one and twenty the spermatic
discharge is devoid of fecundity; afterwards it becomes fertile, but
young men and women produce undersized and imperfect progeny, as is
the case also with the common run of animals. Young women conceive
readily, but, having conceived, their labour in childbed is apt to
be difficult.

The frame fails of reaching its full development and ages
quickly in men of intemperate lusts and in women who become mothers of
many children; for it appears to be the case that growth ceases when
the woman has given birth to three children. Women of a lascivious
disposition grow more sedate and virtuous after they have borne
several children.

After the age of twenty-one women are fully ripe for
child-bearing, but men go on increasing in vigour. When the
spermatic fluid is of a thin consistency it is infertile; when
granular it is fertile and likely to produce male children, but when
thin and unclotted it is apt to produce female offspring. And it is
about this time of life that in men the beard makes its appearance.

2

The onset of the catamenia in women takes place towards the end of
the month; and on this account the wiseacres assert that the moon is
feminine, because the discharge in women and the waning of the moon
happen at one and the same time, and after the wane and the
discharge both one and the other grow whole again. (In some women
the catamenia occur regularly but sparsely every month, and more
abundantly every third month. ) With those in whom the ailment lasts
but a little while, two days or three, recovery is easy; but where the
duration is longer, the ailment is more troublesome. For women are
ailing during these days; and sometimes the discharge is sudden and
sometimes gradual, but in all cases alike there is bodily distress
until the attack be over. In many cases at the commencement of the
attack, when the discharge is about to appear, there occur spasms
and rumbling noises within the womb until such time as the discharge
manifests itself.

Under natural conditions it is after recovery from these
symptoms that conception takes place in women, and women in whom the
signs do not manifest themselves for the most part remain childless.
But the rule is not without exception, for some conceive in spite of
the absence of these symptoms; and these are cases in which a
secretion accumulates, not in such a way as actually to issue forth,
but in amount equal to the residuum left in the case of
child-bearing women after the normal discharge has taken place. And
some conceive while the signs are on but not afterwards, those
namely in whom the womb closes up immediately after the discharge.
In some cases the menses persist during pregnancy up to the very last;
but the result in these cases is that the offspring are poor, and
either fail to survive or grow up weakly.

In many cases, owing to excessive desire, arising either from
youthful impetuosity or from lengthened abstinence, prolapsion of
the womb takes place and the catamenia appear repeatedly, thrice in
the month, until conception occurs; and then the womb withdraws
upwards again to its proper place. . .

As we have remarked above, the discharge is wont to be more
abundant in women than in the females of any other animals. In
creatures that do not bring forth their young alive nothing of the
sort manifests itself, this particular superfluity being converted
into bodily substance; and by the way, in such animals the females are
sometimes larger than the males; and moreover, the material is used up
sometimes for scutes and sometimes for scales, and sometimes for the
abundant covering of feathers, whereas in the vivipara possessed of
limbs it is turned into hair and into bodily substance (for man
alone among them is smooth-skinned), and into urine, for this
excretion is in the majority of such animals thick and copious. Only
in the case of women is the superfluity turned into a discharge
instead of being utilized in these other ways.

There is something similar to be remarked of men: for in
proportion to his size man emits more seminal fluid than any other
animal (for which reason man is the smoothest of animals),
especially such men as are of a moist habit and not over corpulent,
and fair men in greater degree than dark. It is likewise with women;
for in the stout, great part of the excretion goes to nourish the
body. In the act of intercourse, women of a fair complexion
discharge a more plentiful secretion than the dark; and furthermore, a
watery and pungent diet conduces to this phenomenon.

3

It is a sign of conception in women when the place is dry
immediately after intercourse. If the lips of the orifice be smooth
conception is difficult, for the matter slips off; and if they be
thick it is also difficult. But if on digital examination the lips
feel somewhat rough and adherent, and if they be likewise thin, then
the chances are in favour of conception. Accordingly, if conception be
desired, we must bring the parts into such a condition as we have just
described; but if on the contrary we want to avoid conception then
we must bring about a contrary disposition. Wherefore, since if the
parts be smooth conception is prevented, some anoint that part of
the womb on which the seed falls with oil of cedar, or with ointment
of lead or with frankincense, commingled with olive oil. If the seed
remain within for seven days then it is certain that conception has
taken place; for it is during that period that what is known as
effluxion takes place.

In most cases the menstrual discharge recurs for some time after
conception has taken place, its duration being mostly thirty days in
the case of a female and about forty days in the case of a male child.
After parturition also it is common for the discharge to be withheld
for an equal number of days, but not in all cases with equal
exactitude. After conception, and when the above-mentioned days are
past, the discharge no longer takes its natural course but finds its
way to the breasts and turns to milk. The first appearance of milk
in the breasts is scant in quantity and so to speak cobwebby or
interspersed with little threads. And when conception has taken place,
there is apt to be a sort of feeling in the region of the flanks,
which in some cases quickly swell up a little, especially in thin
persons, and also in the groin.

In the case of male children the first movement usually occurs
on the right-hand side of the womb and about the fortieth day, but
if the child be a female then on the left-hand side and about the
ninetieth day. However, we must by no means assume this to be an
accurate statement of fact, for there are many exceptions, in which
the movement is manifested on the right-hand side though a female
child be coming, and on the left-hand side though the infant be a
male. And in short, these and all suchlike phenomena are usually
subject to differences that may be summed up as differences of degree.

About this period the embryo begins to resolve into distinct
parts, it having hitherto consisted of a fleshlike substance without
distinction of parts.

What is called effluxion is a destruction of the embryo within
the first week, while abortion occurs up to the fortieth day; and
the greater number of such embryos as perish do so within the space of
these forty days.

In the case of a male embryo aborted at the fortieth day, if
it be placed in cold water it holds together in a sort of membrane,
but if it be placed in any other fluid it dissolves and disappears. If
the membrane be pulled to bits the embryo is revealed, as big as one
of the large kind of ants; and all the limbs are plain to see,
including the penis, and the eyes also, which as in other animals
are of great size. But the female embryo, if it suffer abortion during
the first three months, is as a rule found to be undifferentiated;
if however it reach the fourth month it comes to be subdivided and
quickly attains further differentiation. In short, while within the
womb, the female infant accomplishes the whole development of its
parts more slowly than the male, and more frequently than the
man-child takes ten months to come to perfection. But after birth, the
females pass more quickly than the males through youth and maturity
and age; and this is especially true of those that bear many children,
as indeed I have already said.

4

When the womb has conceived the seed, straightway in the
majority of cases it closes up until seven months are fulfilled; but
in the eighth month it opens, and the embryo, if it be fertile,
descends in the eighth month. But such embryos as are not fertile
but are devoid of breath at eight months old, their mothers do not
bring into the world by parturition at eight months, neither does
the embryo descend within the womb at that period nor does the womb
open. And it is a sign that the embryo is not capable of life if it be
formed without the above-named circumstances taking place.

After conception women are prone to a feeling of heaviness in
all parts of their bodies, and for instance they experience a
sensation of darkness in front of the eyes and suffer also from
headache. These symptoms appear sooner or later, sometimes as early as
the tenth day, according as the patient be more or less burthened with
superfluous humours. Nausea also and sickness affect the most of
women, and especially such as those that we have just now mentioned,
after the menstrual discharge has ceased and before it is yet turned
in the direction of the breasts.

Moreover, some women suffer most at the beginning of their
pregnancy and some at a later period when the embryo has had time to
grow; and in some women it is a common occurrence to suffer from
strangury towards the end of their time. As a general rule women who
are pregnant of a male child escape comparatively easily and retain
a comparatively healthy look, but it is otherwise with those whose
infant is a female; for these latter look as a rule paler and suffer
more pain, and in many cases they are subject to swellings of the legs
and eruptions on the body. Nevertheless the rule is subject to
exceptions.

Women in pregnancy are a prey to all sorts of longings and to
rapid changes of mood, and some folks call this the 'ivy-sickness';
and with the mothers of female infants the longings are more acute,
and they are less contented when they have got what they desired.

In a certain few cases the patient feels unusually well during
pregnancy. The worst time of all is just when the child's hair is
beginning to grow.

In pregnant women their own natural hair is inclined to grow
thin and fall out, but on the other hand hair tends to grow on parts
of the body where it was not wont to be. As a general rule, a
man-child is more prone to movement within its mother's womb than a
female child, and it is usually born sooner. And labour in the case of
female children is apt to be protracted and sluggish, while in the
case of male children it is acute and by a long way more difficult.
Women who have connexion with their husbands shortly before childbirth
are delivered all the more quickly. Occasionally women seem to be in
the pains of labour though labour has not in fact commenced, what
seemed like the commencement of labour being really the result of
the foetus turning its head.

Now all other animals bring the time of pregnancy to an end in a
uniform way; in other words, one single term of pregnancy is defined
for each of them. But in the case of mankind alone of all animals
the times are diverse; for pregnancy may be of seven months' duration,
or of eight months or of nine, and still more commonly of ten
months, while some few women go even into the eleventh month.

Children that come into the world before seven months can
under no circumstances survive. The seven-months' children are the
earliest that are capable of life, and most of them are weakly-for
which reason, by the way, it is customary to swaddle them in wool,-and
many of them are born with some of the orifices of the body
imperforate, for instance the ears or the nostrils. But as they get
bigger they become more perfectly developed, and many of them grow up.

In Egypt, and in some other places where the women are
fruitful and are wont to bear and bring forth many children without
difficulty, and where the children when born are capable of living
even if they be born subject to deformity, in these places the
eight-months' children live and are brought up, but in Greece it is
only a few of them that survive while most perish. And this being
the general experience, when such a child does happen to survive the
mother is apt to think that it was not an eight months' child after
all, but that she had conceived at an earlier period without being
aware of it.

Women suffer most pain about the fourth and the eighth months, and
if the foetus perishes in the fourth or in the eighth month the mother
also succumbs as a general rule; so that not only do the eight-months'
children not live, but when they die their mothers are in great danger
of their own lives. In like manner children that are apparently born
at a later term than eleven months are held to be in doubtful case;
inasmuch as with them also the beginning of conception may have
escaped the notice of the mother. What I mean to say is that often the
womb gets filled with wind, and then when at a later period
connexion and conception take place, they think that the former
circumstance was the beginning of conception from the similarity of
the symptoms that they experienced.
Such then are the differences between mankind and other
animals in regard to the many various modes of completion of the
term of pregnancy. Furthermore, some animals produce one and some
produce many at a birth, but the human species does sometimes the
one and sometimes the other. As a general rule and among most
nations the women bear one child a birth; but frequently and in many
lands they bear twins, as for instance in Egypt especially.
Sometimes women bring forth three and even four children, and
especially in certain parts of the world, as has already been
stated. The largest number ever brought forth is five, and such an
occurrence has been witnessed on several occasions. There was once
upon a time a certain women who had twenty children at four births;
each time she had five, and most of them grew up.

Now among other animals, if a pair of twins happen to be male
and female they have as good a chance of surviving as though both
had been males or both females; but among mankind very few twins
survive if one happen to be a boy and the other a girl.

Of all animals the woman and the mare are most inclined to
receive the commerce of the male during pregnancy; while all other
animals when they are pregnant avoid the male, save those in which the
phenomenon of superfoetation occurs, such as the hare. Unlike that
animal, the mare after once conceiving cannot be rendered pregnant
again, but brings forth one foal only, at least as a general rule;
in the human species cases of superfoetation are rare, but they do
happen now and then.

An embryo conceived some considerable time after a previous
conception does not come to perfection, but gives rise to pain and
causes the destruction of the earlier embryo; and, by the way, a
case has been known to occur where owing to this destructive influence
no less than twelve embryos conceived by superfoetation have been
discharged. But if the second conception take place at a short
interval, then the mother bears that which was later conceived, and
brings forth the two children like actual twins, as happened,
according to the legend, in the case of Iphicles and Hercules. The
following also is a striking example: a certain woman, having
committed adultery, brought forth the one child resembling her husband
and the other resembling the adulterous lover.

The case has also occurred where a woman, being pregnant of twins,
has subsequently conceived a third child; and in course of time she
brought forth the twins perfect and at full term, but the third a
five-months' child; and this last died there and then. And in
another case it happened that the woman was first delivered of a
seven-months' child, and then of two which were of full term; and of
these the first died and the other two survived.

Some also have been known to conceive while about to miscarry, and
they have lost the one child and been delivered of the other.

If women while going with child cohabit after the eighth month the
child is in most cases born covered over with a slimy fluid. Often
also the child is found to be replete with food of which the mother
had partaken.

5

When women have partaken of salt in overabundance their children
are apt to be born destitute of nails.

Milk that is produced earlier than the seventh month is unfit
for use; but as soon as the child is fit to live the milk is fit to
use. The first of the milk is saltish, as it is likewise with sheep.
Most women are sensibly affected by wine during pregnancy, for if they
partake of it they grow relaxed and debilitated.

The beginning of child-bearing in women and of the capacity to
procreate in men, and the cessation of these functions in both
cases, coincide in the one case with the emission of seed and in the
other with the discharge of the catamenia: with this qualification
that there is a lack of fertility at the commencement of these
symptoms, and again towards their close when the emissions become
scanty and weak. The age at which the sexual powers begin has been
related already. As for their end, the menstrual discharges ceases
in most women about their fortieth year; but with those in whom it
goes on longer it lasts even to the fiftieth year, and women of that
age have been known to bear children. But beyond that age there is
no case on record.

6

Men in most cases continue to be sexually competent until they are
sixty years old, and if that limit be overpassed then until seventy
years; and men have been actually known to procreate children at
seventy years of age. With many men and many women it so happens
that they are unable to produce children to one another, while they
are able to do so in union with other individuals. The same thing
happens with regard to the production of male and female offspring;
for sometimes men and women in union with one another produce male
children or female, as the case may be, but children of the opposite
sex when otherwise mated. And they are apt to change in this respect
with advancing age: for sometimes a husband and wife while they are
young produce female children and in later life male children; and
in other cases the very contrary occurs. And just the same thing is
true in regard to the generative faculty: for some while young are
childless, but have children when they grow older; and some have
children to begin with, and later on no more.

There are certain women who conceive with difficulty, but if
they do conceive, bring the child to maturity; while others again
conceive readily, but are unable to bring the child to birth.
Furthermore, some men and some women produce female offspring and some
male, as for instance in the story of Hercules, who among all his
two and seventy children is said to have begotten but one girl.
Those women who are unable to conceive, save with the help of
medical treatment or some other adventitious circumstance, are as a
general rule apt to bear female children rather than male.

It is a common thing with men to be at first sexually
competent and afterwards impotent, and then again to revert to their
former powers.

From deformed parents come deformed children, lame from lame and
blind from blind, and, speaking generally, children often inherit
anything that is peculiar in their parents and are born with similar
marks, such as pimples or scars. Such things have been known to be
handed down through three generations; for instance, a certain man had
a mark on his arm which his son did not possess, but his grandson
had it in the same spot though not very distinct.

Such cases, however, are few; for the children of cripples are
mostly sound, and there is no hard and fast rule regarding them. While
children mostly resemble their parents or their ancestors, it
sometimes happens that no such resemblance is to be traced. But
parents may pass on resemblance after several generations, as in the
case of the woman in Elis, who committed adultery with a negro; in
this case it was not the woman's own daughter but the daughter's child
that was a blackamoor.

As a rule the daughters have a tendency to take after the
mother, and the boys after the father; but sometimes it is the other
way, the boys taking after the mother and the girls after the
father. And they may resemble both parents in particular features.

There have been known cases of twins that had no resemblance
to one another, but they are alike as a general rule. There was once
upon a time a woman who had intercourse with her husband a week
after giving birth to a child and she conceived and bore a second
child as like the first as any twin. Some women have a tendency to
produce children that take after themselves, and others children
that take after the husband; and this latter case is like that of
the celebrated mare in Pharsalus, that got the name of the Honest
Wife.

7

In the emission of sperm there is a preliminary discharge of
air, and the outflow is manifestly caused by a blast of air; for
nothing is cast to a distance save by pneumatic pressure. After the
seed reaches the womb and remains there for a while, a membrane
forms around it; for when it happens to escape before it is distinctly
formed, it looks like an egg enveloped in its membrane after removal
of the eggshell; and the membrane is full of veins.

All animals whatsoever, whether they fly or swim or walk upon
dry land, whether they bring forth their young alive or in the egg,
develop in the same way: save only that some have the navel attached
to the womb, namely the viviparous animals, and some have it
attached to the egg, and some to both parts alike, as in a certain
sort of fishes. And in some cases membranous envelopes surround the
egg, and in other cases the chorion surrounds it. And first of all the
animal develops within the innermost envelope, and then another
membrane appears around the former one, which latter is for the most
part attached to the womb, but is in part separated from it and
contains fluid. In between is a watery or sanguineous fluid, which the
women folk call the forewaters.

8

All animals, or all such as have a navel, grow by the navel. And
the navel is attached to the cotyledon in all such as possess
cotyledons, and to the womb itself by a vein in all such as have the
womb smooth. And as regards their shape within the womb, the
four-footed animals all lie stretched out, and the footless animals
lie on their sides, as for instance fishes; but two-legged animals lie
in a bent position, as for instance birds; and human embryos lie bent,
with nose between the knees and eyes upon the knees, and the ears free
at the sides.

All animals alike have the head upwards to begin with; but as
they grow and approach the term of egress from the womb they turn
downwards, and birth in the natural course of things takes place in
all animals head foremost; but in abnormal cases it may take place
in a bent position, or feet foremost.

The young of quadrupeds when they are near their full time
contain excrements, both liquid and in the form of solid lumps, the
latter in the lower part of the bowel and the urine in the bladder.

In those animals that have cotyledons in the womb the cotyledons
grow less as the embryo grows bigger, and at length they disappear
altogether. The navel-string is a sheath wrapped about blood-vessels
which have their origin in the womb, from the cotyledons in those
animals which possess them and from a blood-vessel in those which do
not. In the larger animals, such as the embryos of oxen, the vessels
are four in number, and in smaller animals two; in the very little
ones, such as fowls, one vessel only.

Of the four vessels that run into the embryo, two pass through
the liver where the so-called gates or 'portae' are, running in the
direction of the great vein, and the other two run in the direction of
the aorta towards the point where it divides and becomes two vessels
instead of one. Around each pair of blood-vessels are membranes, and
surrounding these membranes is the navel-string itself, after the
manner of a sheath. And as the embryo grows, the veins themselves tend
more and more to dwindle in size. And also as the embryo matures it
comes down into the hollow of the womb and is observed to move here,
and sometimes rolls over in the vicinity of the groin.

9

When women are in labour, their pains determine towards many
divers parts of the body, and in most cases to one or other of the
thighs. Those are the quickest to be delivered who experience severe
pains in the region of the belly; and parturition is difficult in
those who begin by suffering pain in the loins, and speedy when the
pain is abdominal. If the child about to be born be a male, the
preliminary flood is watery and pale in colour, but if a girl it is
tinged with blood, though still watery. In some cases of labour
these latter phenomena do not occur, either one way or the other.

In other animals parturition is unaccompanied by pain, and the
dam is plainly seen to suffer but moderate inconvenience. In women,
however, the pains are more severe, and this is especially the case in
persons of sedentary habits, and in those who are weak-chested and
short of breath. Labour is apt to be especially difficult if during
the process the woman while exerting force with her breath fails to
hold it in.

First of all, when the embryo starts to move and the membranes
burst, there issues forth the watery flood; then afterwards comes
the embryo, while the womb everts and the afterbirth comes out from
within.

10

The cutting of the navel-string, which is the nurse's duty, is a
matter calling for no little care and skill. For not only in cases
of difficult labour must she be able to render assistance with skilful
hand, but she must also have her wits about her in all
contingencies, and especially in the operation of tying the cord.
For if the afterbirth have come away, the navel is ligatured off
from the afterbirth with a woollen thread and is then cut above the
ligature; and at the place where it has been tied it heals up, and the
remaining portion drops off. (If the ligature come loose the child
dies from loss of blood. ) But if the afterbirth has not yet come away,
but remains after the child itself is extruded, it is cut away
within after the ligaturing of the cord.

It often happens that the child appears to have been born dead
when it is merely weak, and when before the umbilical cord has been
ligatured, the blood has run out into the cord and its surroundings.
But experienced midwives have been known to squeeze back the blood
into the child's body from the cord, and immediately the child that
a moment before was bloodless came back to life again.

It is the natural rule, as we have mentioned above, for all
animals to come into the world head foremost, and children,
moreover, have their hands stretched out by their sides. And the child
gives a cry and puts its hands up to its mouth as soon as it issues
forth.

Moreover the child voids excrement sometimes at once,
sometimes a little later, but in all cases during the first day; and
this excrement is unduly copious in comparison with the size of the
child; it is what the midwives call the meconium or 'poppy-juice'.
In colour it resembles blood, extremely dark and pitch-like, but later
on it becomes milky, for the child takes at once to the breast. Before
birth the child makes no sound, even though in difficult labour it put
forth its head while the rest of the body remains within.

In cases where flooding takes place rather before its time, it
is apt to be followed by difficult parturition. But if discharge
take place after birth in small quantity, and in cases where it only
takes place at the beginning and does not continue till the fortieth
day, then in such cases women make a better recovery and are the
sooner ready to conceive again.

Until the child is forty days old it neither laughs nor weeps
during waking hours, but of nights it sometimes does both; and for the
most part it does not even notice being tickled, but passes most of
its time in sleep. As it keeps on growing, it gets more and more
wakeful; and moreover it shows signs of dreaming, though it is long
afterwards before it remembers what it dreams.

In other animals there is no contrasting difference between one
bone and another, but all are properly formed; but in children the
front part of the head is soft and late of ossifying. And by the
way, some animals are born with teeth, but children begin to cut their
teeth in the seventh month; and the front teeth are the first to
come through, sometimes the upper and sometimes the lower ones. And
the warmer the nurses' milk so much the quicker are the children's
teeth to come.

11

After parturition and the cleasing flood the milk comes in plenty,
and in some women it flows not only from the nipples but at divers
parts of the breasts, and in some cases even from the armpits. And for
some time afterwards there continue to be certain indurated parts of
the breast called strangalides, or 'knots', which occur when it so
happens that the moisture is not concocted, or when it finds no outlet
but accumulates within. For the whole breast is so spongy that if a
woman in drinking happen to swallow a hair, she gets a pain in her
breast, which ailment is called 'trichia'; and the pain lasts till the
hair either find its own way out or be sucked out with the milk. Women
continue to have milk until their next conception; and then the milk
stops coming and goes dry, alike in the human species and in the
quadrupedal vivipara. So long as there is a flow of milk the
menstrual purgations do not take place, at least as a general rule,
though the discharge has been known to occur during the period of
suckling. For, speaking generally, a determination of moisture does
not take place at one and the same time in several directions; as
for instance the menstrual purgations tend to be scanty in persons
suffering from haemorrhoids. And in some women the like happens
owing to their suffering from varices, when the fluids issue from
the pelvic region before entering into the womb. And patients who
during suppression of the menses happen to vomit blood are no whit the
worse.

12

Children are very commonly subject to convulsions, more especially
such of them as are more than ordinarily well-nourished on rich or
unusually plentiful milk from a stout nurse. Wine is bad for
infants, in that it tends to excite this malady, and red wine is worse
than white, especially when taken undiluted; and most things that tend
to induce flatulency are also bad, and constipation too is
prejudicial. The majority of deaths in infancy occur before the
child is a week old, hence it is customary to name the child at that
age, from a belief that it has now a better chance of survival. This
malady is worst at the full of the moon; and by the way, it is a
dangerous symptom when the spasms begin in the child's back.

Book VIII

1

WE have now discussed the physical characteristics of animals
and their methods of generation. Their habits and their modes of
living vary according to their character and their food.

In the great majority of animals there are traces of psychical
qualities or attitudes, which qualities are more markedly
differentiated in the case of human beings. For just as we pointed out
resemblances in the physical organs, so in a number of animals we
observe gentleness or fierceness, mildness or cross temper, courage,
or timidity, fear or confidence, high spirit or low cunning, and, with
regard to intelligence, something equivalent to sagacity. Some of
these qualities in man, as compared with the corresponding qualities
in animals, differ only quantitatively: that is to say, a man has more
or less of this quality, and an animal has more or less of some other;
other qualities in man are represented by analogous and not
identical qualities: for instance, just as in man we find knowledge,
wisdom, and sagacity, so in certain animals there exists some other
natural potentiality akin to these. The truth of this statement will
be the more clearly apprehended if we have regard to the phenomena
of childhood: for in children may be observed the traces and seeds
of what will one day be settled psychological habits, though
psychologically a child hardly differs for the time being from an
animal; so that one is quite justified in saying that, as regards
man and animals, certain psychical qualities are identical with one
another, whilst others resemble, and others are analogous to, each
other.

Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to
animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact
line of demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form
should lie. Thus, next after lifeless things in the upward scale comes
the plant, and of plants one will differ from another as to its amount
of apparent vitality; and, in a word, the whole genus of plants,
whilst it is devoid of life as compared with an animal, is endowed
with life as compared with other corporeal entities. Indeed, as we
just remarked, there is observed in plants a continuous scale of
ascent towards the animal. So, in the sea, there are certain objects
concerning which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be
animal or vegetable. For instance, certain of these objects are fairly
rooted, and in several cases perish if detached; thus the pinna is
rooted to a particular spot, and the solen (or razor-shell) cannot
survive withdrawal from its burrow. Indeed, broadly speaking, the
entire genus of testaceans have a resemblance to vegetables, if they
be contrasted with such animals as are capable of progression.

In regard to sensibility, some animals give no indication
whatsoever of it, whilst others indicate it but indistinctly. Further,
the substance of some of these intermediate creatures is fleshlike, as
is the case with the so-called tethya (or ascidians) and the acalephae
(or sea-anemones); but the sponge is in every respect like a
vegetable. And so throughout the entire animal scale there is a
graduated differentiation in amount of vitality and in capacity for
motion.

A similar statement holds good with regard to habits of life.
Thus of plants that spring from seed the one function seems to be
the reproduction of their own particular species, and the sphere of
action with certain animals is similarly limited. The faculty of
reproduction, then, is common to all alike. If sensibility be
superadded, then their lives will differ from one another in respect
to sexual intercourse through the varying amount of pleasure derived
therefrom, and also in regard to modes of parturition and ways of
rearing their young. Some animals, like plants, simply procreate their
own species at definite seasons; other animals busy themselves also in
procuring food for their young, and after they are reared quit them
and have no further dealings with them; other animals are more
intelligent and endowed with memory, and they live with their
offspring for a longer period and on a more social footing.

The life of animals, then, may be divided into two
acts-procreation and feeding; for on these two acts all their
interests and life concentrate. Their food depends chiefly on the
substance of which they are severally constituted; for the source of
their growth in all cases will be this substance. And whatsoever is in
conformity with nature is pleasant, and all animals pursue pleasure in
keeping with their nature.

2

Animals are also differentiated locally: that is to say, some
live upon dry land, while others live in the water. And this
differentiation may be interpreted in two different ways. Thus, some
animals are termed terrestrial as inhaling air, and others aquatic
as taking in water; and there are others which do not actually take in
these elements, but nevertheless are constitutionally adapted to the
cooling influence, so far as is needful to them, of one element or the
other, and hence are called terrestrial or aquatic though they neither
breathe air nor take in water. Again, other animals are so called from
their finding their food and fixing their habitat on land or in water:
for many animals, although they inhale air and breed on land, yet
derive their food from the water, and live in water for the greater
part of their lives; and these are the only animals to which as living
in and on two elements the term 'amphibious' is applicable. There is
no animal taking in water that is terrestrial or aerial or that
derives its food from the land, whereas of the great number of land
animals inhaling air many get their food from the water; moreover some
are so peculiarly organized that if they be shut off altogether from
the water they cannot possibly live, as for instance, the so-called
sea-turtle, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the seal, and some of the
smaller creatures, such as the fresh-water tortoise and the frog:
now all these animals choke or drown if they do not from time to
time breathe atmospheric air: they breed and rear their young on dry
land, or near the land, but they pass their lives in water.

But the dolphin is equipped in the most remarkable way of all
animals: the dolphin and other similar aquatic animals, including
the other cetaceans which resemble it; that is to say, the whale,
and all the other creatures that are furnished with a blow-hole. One
can hardly allow that such an animal is terrestrial and terrestrial
only, or aquatic and aquatic only, if by terrestrial we mean an animal
that inhales air, and if by aquatic we mean an animal that takes in
water. For the fact is the dolphin performs both these processes: he
takes in water and discharges it by his blow-hole, and he also inhales
air into his lungs; for, by the way, the creature is furnished with
this organ and respires thereby, and accordingly, when caught in the
nets, he is quickly suffocated for lack of air. He can also live for a
considerable while out of the water, but all this while he keeps up
a dull moaning sound corresponding to the noise made by
air-breathing animals in general; furthermore, when sleeping, the
animal keeps his nose above water, and he does so that he may
breathe the air. Now it would be unreasonable to assign one and the
same class of animals to both categories, terrestrial and aquatic,
seeing that these categories are more or less exclusive of one
another; we must accordingly supplement our definition of the term
'aquatic' or 'marine'. For the fact is, some aquatic animals take in
water and discharge it again, for the same reason that leads
air-breathing animals to inhale air: in other words, with the object
of cooling the blood. Others take in water as incidental to their mode
of feeding; for as they get their food in the water they cannot but
take in water along with their food, and if they take in water they
must be provided with some organ for discharging it. Those blooded
animals, then, that use water for a purpose analogous to respiration
are provided with gills; and such as take in water when catching their
prey, with the blow-hole. Similar remarks are applicable to molluscs
and crustaceans; for again it is by way of procuring food that these
creatures take in water.

Aquatic in different ways, the differences depending on bodily
relation to external temperature and on habit of life, are such
animals on the one hand as take in air but live in water, and such
on the other hand as take in water and are furnished with gills but go
upon dry land and get their living there. At present only one animal
of the latter kind is known, the so-called cordylus or water-newt;
this creature is furnished not with lungs but with gills, but for
all that it is a quadruped and fitted for walking on dry land.

In the case of all these animals their nature appears in some
kind of a way to have got warped, just as some male animals get to
resemble the female, and some female animals the male. The fact is
that animals, if they be subjected to a modification in minute organs,
are liable to immense modifications in their general configuration.
This phenomenon may be observed in the case of gelded animals: only
a minute organ of the animal is mutilated, and the creature passes
from the male to the female form. We may infer, then, that if in the
primary conformation of the embryo an infinitesimally minute but
absolutely essential organ sustain a change of magnitude one way or
the other, the animal will in one case turn to male and in the other
to female; and also that, if the said organ be obliterated altogether,
the animal will be of neither one sex nor the other. And so by the
occurrence of modification in minute organs it comes to pass that
one animal is terrestrial and another aquatic, in both senses of these
terms. And, again, some animals are amphibious whilst other animals
are not amphibious, owing to the circumstance that in their
conformation while in the embryonic condition there got intermixed
into them some portion of the matter of which their subsequent food is
constituted; for, as was said above, what is in conformity with nature
is to every single animal pleasant and agreeable.

Animals then have been categorized into terrestrial and
aquatic in three ways, according to their assumption of air or of
water, the temperament of their bodies, or the character of their
food; and the mode of life of an animal corresponds to the category in
which it is found. That is to say, in some cases the animal depends
for its terrestrial or aquatic nature on temperament and diet
combined, as well as upon its method of respiration; and sometimes
on temperament and habits alone.

Of testaceans, some, that are incapable of motion, subsist on
fresh water, for, as the sea water dissolves into its constituents,
the fresh water from its greater thinness percolates through the
grosser parts; in fact, they live on fresh water just as they were
originally engendered from the same. Now that fresh water is contained
in the sea and can be strained off from it can be proved in a
thoroughly practical way. Take a thin vessel of moulded wax, attach
a cord to it, and let it down quite empty into the sea: in twenty-four
hours it will be found to contain a quantity of water, and the water
will be fresh and drinkable.

Sea-anemones feed on such small fishes as come in their way. The
mouth of this creature is in the middle of its body; and this fact may
be clearly observed in the case of the larger varieties. Like the
oyster it has a duct for the outlet of the residuum; and this duct
is at the top of the animal. In other words, the sea-anemone
corresponds to the inner fleshy part of the oyster, and the stone to
which the one creature clings corresponds to the shell which encases
the other.

The limpet detaches itself from the rock and goes about in quest
of food. Of shell-fish that are mobile, some are carnivorous and
live on little fishes, as for instance, the purple murex-and there can
be no doubt that the purple murex is carnivorous, as it is caught by a
bait of fish; others are carnivorous, but feed also on marine
vegetation.

The sea-turtles feed on shell-fish-for, by the way, their mouths
are extraordinarily hard; whatever object it seizes, stone or other,
it crunches into bits, but when it leaves the water for dry land it
browses on grass). These creatures suffer greatly, and oftentimes
die when they lie on the surface of the water exposed to a scorching
sun; for, when once they have risen to the surface, they find a
difficulty in sinking again.

Crustaceans feed in like manner. They are omnivorous; that is to
say, they live on stones, slime, sea-weed, and excrement-as for
instance the rock-crab-and are also carnivorous. The crawfish or
spiny-lobster can get the better of fishes even of the larger species,
though in some of them it occasionally finds more than its match.
Thus, this animal is so overmastered and cowed by the octopus that
it dies of terror if it become aware of an octopus in the same net
with itself. The crawfish can master the conger-eel, for owing to
the rough spines of the crawfish the eel cannot slip away and elude
its hold. The conger-eel, however, devours the octopus, for owing to
the slipperiness of its antagonist the octopus can make nothing of it.
The crawfish feeds on little fish, capturing them beside its hole or
dwelling place; for, by the way, it is found out at sea on rough and
stony bottoms, and in such places it makes its den. Whatever it
catches, it puts into its mouth with its pincer-like claws, like the
common crab. Its nature is to walk straight forward when it has
nothing to fear, with its feelers hanging sideways; if it be
frightened, it makes its escape backwards, darting off to a great
distance. These animals fight one another with their claws, just as
rams fight with their horns, raising them and striking their
opponents; they are often also seen crowded together in herds. So much
for the mode of life of the crustacean.

Molluscs are all carnivorous; and of molluscs the calamary and
the sepia are more than a match for fishes even of the large
species. The octopus for the most part gathers shellfish, extracts the
flesh, and feeds on that; in fact, fishermen recognize their holes
by the number of shells lying about. Some say that the octopus devours
its own species, but this statement is incorrect; it is doubtless
founded on the fact that the creature is often found with its
tentacles removed, which tentacles have really been eaten off by the
conger.

Fishes, all without exception, feed on spawn in the spawning
season; but in other respects the food varies with the varying
species. Some fishes are exclusively carnivorous, as the cartilaginous
genus, the conger, the channa or Serranus, the tunny, the bass, the
synodon or Dentex, the amia, the sea-perch, and the muraena. The red
mullet is carnivorous, but feeds also on sea-weed, on shell-fish,
and on mud. The grey mullet feeds on mud, the dascyllus on mud and
offal, the scarus or parrot-fish and the melanurus on sea-weed, the
saupe on offal and sea-weed; the saupe feeds also on zostera, and is
the only fish that is captured with a gourd. All fishes devour their
own species, with the single exception of the cestreus or mullet;
and the conger is especially ravenous in this respect. The cephalus
and the mullet in general are the only fish that eat no flesh; this
may be inferred from the facts that when caught they are never found
with flesh in their intestines, and that the bait used to catch them
is not flesh but barley-cake. Every fish of the mullet-kind lives on
sea-weed and sand. The cephalus, called by some the 'chelon', keeps
near in to the shore, the peraeas keeps out at a distance from it, and
feeds on a mucous substance exuding from itself, and consequently is
always in a starved condition. The cephalus lives in mud, and is in
consequence heavy and slimy; it never feeds on any other fish. As it
lives in mud, it has every now and then to make a leap upwards out
of the mud so as to wash the slime from off its body. There is no
creature known to prey upon the spawn of the cephalus, so that the
species is exceedingly numerous; when, however, the is full-grown it
is preyed upon by a number of fishes, and especially by the acharnas
or bass. Of all fishes the mullet is the most voracious and
insatiable, and in consequence its belly is kept at full stretch;
whenever it is not starving, it may be considered as out of condition.
When it is frightened, it hides its head in mud, under the notion that
it is hiding its whole body. The synodon is carnivorous and feeds on
molluscs. Very often the synodon and the channa cast up their stomachs
while chasing smaller fishes; for, be it remembered, fishes have their
stomachs close to the mouth, and are not furnished with a gullet.

Some fishes then, as has been stated, are carnivorous, and
carnivorous only, as the dolphin, the synodon, the gilt-head, the
selachians, and the molluscs. Other fishes feed habitually on mud or
sea-weed or sea-moss or the so-called stalk-weed or growing plants; as
for instance, the phycis, the goby, and the rock-fish; and, by the
way, the only meat that the phycis will touch is that of prawns.
Very often, however, as has been stated, they devour one another,
and especially do the larger ones devour the smaller. The proof of
their being carnivorous is the fact that they can be caught with flesh
for a bait. The mackerel, the tunny, and the bass are for the most
part carnivorous, but they do occasionally feed on sea-weed. The
sargue feeds on the leavings of the trigle or red mullet. The red
mullet burrows in the mud, when it sets the mud in motion and quits
its haunt, the sargue settles down into the place and feeds on what is
left behind, and prevents any smaller fish from settling in the
immediate vicinity.

Of all fishes the so-called scarus, or parrot, wrasse, is the
only one known to chew the cud like a quadruped.

As a general rule the larger fishes catch the smaller ones in
their mouths whilst swimming straight after them in the ordinary
position; but the selachians, the dolphin, and all the cetacea must
first turn over on their backs, as their mouths are placed down below;
this allows a fair chance of escape to the smaller fishes, and,
indeed, if it were not so, there would be very few of the little
fishes left, for the speed and voracity of the dolphin is something
marvellous.

Of eels a few here and there feed on mud and on chance morsels
of food thrown to them; the greater part of them subsist on fresh
water. Eel-breeders are particularly careful to have the water kept
perfectly clear, by its perpetually flowing on to flat slabs of
stone and then flowing off again; sometimes they coat the eel-tanks
with plaster. The fact is that the eel will soon choke if the water is
not clear as his gills are peculiarly small. On this account, when
fishing for eels, they disturb the water.