No More Learning

With regard to organs of defence and offence, such
as teeth, tusks, horns, spurs, and the like, these in some species the
male possesses and the female does not; as, for instance, the hind has
no horns, and where the cock-bird has a spur the hen is entirely
destitute of the organ; and in like manner the sow is devoid of tusks.
In other species such organs are found in both sexes, but are more
perfectly developed in the male; as, for instance, the horn of the
bull is more powerful than the horn of the cow.

Book V

1

As to the parts internal and external that all animals are
furnished withal, and further as to the senses, to voice, and sleep,
and the duality sex, all these topics have now been touched upon. It
now remains for us to discuss, duly and in order, their several
modes of propagation.

These modes are many and diverse, and in some respects are like,
and in other respects are unlike to one another. As we carried on
our previous discussion genus by genus, so we must attempt to follow
the same divisions in our present argument; only that whereas in the
former case we started with a consideration of the parts of man, in
the present case it behoves us to treat of man last of all because
he involves most discussion. We shall commence, then, with testaceans,
and then proceed to crustaceans, and then to the other genera in due
order; and these other genera are, severally, molluscs, and insects,
then fishes viviparous and fishes oviparous, and next birds; and
afterwards we shall treat of animals provided with feet, both such
as are oviparous and such as are viviparous, and we may observe that
some quadrupeds are viviparous, but that the only viviparous biped
is man.

Now there is one property that animals are found to have in common
with plants. For some plants are generated from the seed of plants,
whilst other plants are self-generated through the formation of some
elemental principle similar to a seed; and of these latter plants some
derive their nutriment from the ground, whilst others grow inside
other plants, as is mentioned, by the way, in my treatise on Botany.
So with animals, some spring from parent animals according to their
kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and not from kindred stock; and
of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying
earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects,
while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals
out of the secretions of their several organs.

In animals where generation goes by heredity, wherever there is
duality of sex generation is due to copulation. In the group of
fishes, however, there are some that are neither male nor female,
and these, while they are identical generically with other fish,
differ from them specifically; but there are others that stand
altogether isolated and apart by themselves. Other fishes there are
that are always female and never male, and from them are conceived
what correspond to the wind-eggs in birds. Such eggs, by the way, in
birds are all unfruitful; but it is their nature to be independently
capable of generation up to the egg-stage, unless indeed there be some
other mode than the one familiar to us of intercourse with the male;
but concerning these topics we shall treat more precisely later on. In
the case of certain fishes, however, after they have spontaneously
generated eggs, these eggs develop into living animals; only that in
certain of these cases development is spontaneous, and in others is
not independent of the male; and the method of proceeding in regard to
these matters will set forth by and by, for the method is somewhat
like to the method followed in the case of birds. But whensoever
creatures are spontaneously generated, either in other animals, in the
soil, or on plants, or in the parts of these, and when such are
generated male and female, then from the copulation of such
spontaneously generated males and females there is generated a
something-a something never identical in shape with the parents, but a
something imperfect. For instance, the issue of copulation in lice
is nits; in flies, grubs; in fleas, grubs egg-like in shape; and
from these issues the parent-species is never reproduced, nor is any
animal produced at all, but the like nondescripts only.

First, then, we must proceed to treat of 'covering' in regard to
such animals as cover and are covered; and then after this to treat in
due order of other matters, both the exceptional and those of
general occurrence.

2

Those animals, then, cover and are covered in which there is a
duality of sex, and the modes of covering in such animals are not in
all cases similar nor analogous. For the red-blooded animals that
are viviparous and furnished with feet have in all cases organs
adapted for procreation, but the sexes do not in all cases come
together in like manner. Thus, opisthuretic animals copulate with a
rearward presentment, as is the case with the lion, the hare, and
the lynx; though, by the way, in the case of the hare, the female is
often observed to cover the male.

The case is similar in most other such animals; that is to say,
the majority of quadrupeds copulate as best they can, the male
mounting the female; and this is the only method of copulating adopted
by birds, though there are certain diversities of method observed even
in birds. For in some cases the female squats on the ground and the
male mounts on top of her, as is the case with the cock and hen
bustard, and the barn-door cock and hen; in other cases, the male
mounts without the female squatting, as with the male and female
crane; for, with these birds, the male mounts on to the back of the
female and covers her, and like the cock-sparrow consumes but very
little time in the operation. Of quadrupeds, bears perform the
operation lying prone on one another, in the same way as other
quadrupeds do while standing up; that is to say, with the belly of the
male pressed to the back of the female. Hedgehogs copulate erect,
belly to belly.

With regard to large-sized vivipara, the hind only very rarely
sustains the mounting of the stag to the full conclusion of the
operation, and the same is the case with the cow as regards the
bull, owing to the rigidity of the penis of the bull. In point of
fact, the females of these animals elicit the sperm of the male in the
act of withdrawing from underneath him; and, by the way, this
phenomenon has been observed in the case of the stag and hind,
domesticated, of course. Covering with the wolf is the same as with
the dog. Cats do not copulate with a rearward presentment on the
part of the female, but the male stands erect and the female puts
herself underneath him; and, by the way, the female cat is
peculiarly lecherous, and wheedles the male on to sexual commerce, and
caterwauls during the operation. Camels copulate with the female in
a sitting posture, and the male straddles over and covers her, not
with the hinder presentment on the female's part but like the other
quadrupeds mentioned above, and they pass the whole day long in the
operation; when thus engaged they retire to lonely spots, and none but
their keeper dare approach them. And, be it observed, the penis of the
camel is so sinewy that bow-strings are manufactured out of it.
Elephants, also, copulate in lonely places, and especially by
river-sides in their usual haunts; the female squats down, and
straddles with her legs, and the male mounts and covers her. The
seal covers like all opisthuretic animals, and in this species the
copulation extends over a lengthened time, as is the case with the dog
and bitch; and the penis in the male seal is exceptionally large.

3

Oviparous quadrupeds cover one another in the same way. That is to
say, in some cases the male mounts the female precisely as in the
viviparous animals, as is observed in both the land and the sea
tortoise. . . . And these creatures have an organ in which the ducts
converge, and with which they perform the act of copulation, as is
also observed in the toad, the frog, and all other animals of the same
group.

4

Long animals devoid of feet, like serpents and muraenae,
intertwine in coition, belly to belly. And, in fact, serpents coil
round one another so tightly as to present the appearance of a
single serpent with a pair of heads. The same mode is followed by
the saurians; that is to say, they coil round one another in the act
of coition.

5

All fishes, with the exception of the flat selachians, lie down
side by side, and copulate belly to belly. Fishes, however, that are
flat and furnished with tails-as the ray, the trygon, and the
like-copulate not only in this way, but also, where the tail from
its thinness is no impediment, by mounting of the male upon the
female, belly to back. But the rhina or angel-fish, and other like
fishes where the tail is large, copulate only by rubbing against one
another sideways, belly to belly. Some men assure us that they have
seen some of the selachia copulating hindways, dog and bitch. In the
cartilaginous species the female is larger than the male; and the same
is the case with other fishes for the most part. And among
cartilaginous fishes are included, besides those already named, the
bos, the lamia, the aetos, the narce or torpedo, the fishing-frog, and
all the galeodes or sharks and dogfish. Cartilaginous fishes, then, of
all kinds, have in many instances been observed copulating in the
way above mentioned; for, by the way, in viviparous animals the
process of copulation is of longer duration than in the ovipara.

It is the same with the dolphin and with all cetaceans; that
is to say, they come side by side, male and female, and copulate,
and the act extends over a time which is neither short nor very long.

Again, in cartilaginous fishes the male, in some species,
differs from the female in the fact that he is furnished with two
appendages hanging down from about the exit of the residuum, and
that the female is not so furnished; and this distinction between
the sexes is observed in all the species of the sharks and dog-fish.

Now neither fishes nor any animals devoid of feet are
furnished with testicles, but male serpents and male fishes have a
pair of ducts which fill with milt or sperm at the rutting season, and
discharge, in all cases, a milk-like juice. These ducts unite, as in
birds; for birds, by the way, have their testicles in their
interior, and so have all ovipara that are furnished with feet. And
this union of the ducts is so far continued and of such extension as
to enter the receptive organ in the female.

In viviparous animals furnished with feet there is outwardly one
and the same duct for the sperm and the liquid residuum; but there are
separate ducts internally, as has been observed in the differentiation
of the organs. And with such animals as are not viviparous the same
passage serves for the discharge also of the solid residuum; although,
internally, there are two passages, separate but near to one
another. And these remarks apply to both male and female; for these
animals are unprovided with a bladder except in the case of the
tortoise; and the she-tortoise, though furnished with a bladder, has
only one passage; and tortoises, by the way, belong to the ovipara.

In the case of oviparous fishes the process of coition is less
open to observation. In point of fact, some are led by the want of
actual observation to surmise that the female becomes impregnated by
swallowing the seminal fluid of the male. And there can be no doubt
that this proceeding on the part of the female is often witnessed; for
at the rutting season the females follow the males and perform this
operation, and strike the males with their mouths under the belly, and
the males are thereby induced to part with the sperm sooner and more
plentifully. And, further, at the spawning season the males go in
pursuit of the females, and, as the female spawns, the males swallow
the eggs; and the species is continued in existence by the spawn
that survives this process. On the coast of Phoenicia they take
advantage of these instinctive propensities of the two sexes to
catch both one and the other: that is to say, by using the male of the
grey mullet as a decoy they collect and net the female, and by using
the female, the male.

The repeated observation of this phenomenon has led to the
notion that the process was equivalent to coition, but the fact is
that a similar phenomenon is observable in quadrupeds. For at the
rutting seasons both the males and the females take to running at
their genitals, and the two sexes take to smelling each other at those
parts. (With partridges, by the way, if the female gets to leeward
of the male, she becomes thereby impregnated. And often when they
happen to be in heat she is affected in this wise by the voice of
the male, or by his breathing down on her as he flies overhead; and,
by the way, both the male and the female partridge keep the mouth wide
open and protrude the tongue in the process of coition. )

The actual process of copulation on the part of oviparous fishes
is seldom accurately observed, owing to the fact that they very soon
fall aside and slip asunder. But, for all that, the process has been
observed to take place in the manner above described.

6

Molluscs, such as the octopus, the sepia, and the calamary, have
sexual intercourse all in the same way; that is to say, they unite
at the mouth, by an interlacing of their tentacles. When, then, the
octopus rests its so-called head against the ground and spreads abroad
its tentacles, the other sex fits into the outspreading of these
tentacles, and the two sexes then bring their suckers into mutual
connexion.

Some assert that the male has a kind of penis in one of his
tentacles, the one in which are the largest suckers; and they
further assert that the organ is tendinous in character, growing
attached right up to the middle of the tentacle, and that the latter
enables it to enter the nostril or funnel of the female.

Now cuttle-fish and calamaries swim about closely intertwined,
with mouths and tentacles facing one another and fitting closely
together, and swim thus in opposite directions; and they fit their
so-called nostrils into one another, and the one sex swims backwards
and the other frontwards during the operation. And the female lays its
spawn by the so-called 'blow-hole'; and, by the way, some declare that
it is at this organ that the coition really takes place.

7

Crustaceans copulate, as the crawfish, the lobster, the carid
and the like, just like the opisthuretic quadrupeds, when the one
animal turns up its tail and the other puts his tail on the other's
tail. Copulation takes place in the early spring, near to the shore;
and, in fact, the process has often been observed in the case of all
these animals. Sometimes it takes place about the time when the figs
begin to ripen. Lobsters and carids copulate in like manner.

Crabs copulate at the front parts of one another, belly to
belly, throwing their overlapping opercula to meet one another:
first the smaller crab mounts the larger at the rear; after he has
mounted, the larger one turns on one side. Now, the female differs
in no respect from the male except in the circumstance that its
operculum is larger, more elevated, and more hairy, and into this
operculum it spawns its eggs and in the same neighbourhood is the
outlet of the residuum. In the copulative process of these animals
there is no protrusion of a member from one animal into the other.

8

Insects copulate at the hinder end, and the smaller individuals
mount the larger; and the smaller individual is I I is the male. The
female pushes from underneath her sexual organ into the body of the
male above, this being the reverse of the operation observed in
other creatures; and this organ in the case of some insects appears to
be disproportionately large when compared to the size of the body, and
that too in very minute creatures; in some insects the disproportion
is not so striking. This phenomenon may be witnessed if any one will
pull asunder flies that are copulating; and, by the way, these
creatures are, under the circumstances, averse to separation; for
the intercourse of the sexes in their case is of long duration, as may
be observed with common everyday insects, such as the fly and the
cantharis. They all copulate in the manner above described, the fly,
the cantharis, the sphondyle, (the phalangium spider) any others of
the kind that copulate at all. The phalangia-that is to say, such of
the species as spin webs-perform the operation in the following way:
the female takes hold of the suspended web at the middle and gives a
pull, and the male gives a counter pull; this operation they repeat
until they are drawn in together and interlaced at the hinder ends;
for, by the way, this mode of copulation suits them in consequence
of the rotundity of their stomachs.

So much for the modes of sexual intercourse in all animals; but,
with regard to the same phenomenon, there are definite laws followed
as regards the season of the year and the age of the animal.

Animals in general seem naturally disposed to this intercourse
at about the same period of the year, and that is when winter is
changing into summer. And this is the season of spring, in which
almost all things that fly or walk or swim take to pairing. Some
animals pair and breed in autumn also and in winter, as is the case
with certain aquatic animals and certain birds. Man pairs and breeds
at all seasons, as is the case also with domesticated animals, owing
to the shelter and good feeding they enjoy: that is to say, with those
whose period of gestation is also comparatively brief, as the sow
and the bitch, and with those birds that breed frequently. Many
animals time the season of intercourse with a view to the right
nurture subsequently of their young. In the human species, the male is
more under sexual excitement in winter, and the female in summer.

With birds the far greater part, as has been said, pair and
breed during the spring and early summer, with the exception of the
halcyon.

The halcyon breeds at the season of the winter solstice.
Accordingly, when this season is marked with calm weather, the name of
'halcyon days' is given to the seven days preceding, and to as many
following, the solstice; as Simonides the poet says:

God lulls for fourteen days the winds to sleep

In winter; and this temperate interlude

Men call the Holy Season, when the deep

Cradles the mother Halcyon and her brood.

And these days are calm, when southerly winds prevail at the
solstice, northerly ones having been the accompaniment of the Pleiads.
The halcyon is said to take seven days for building her nest, and
the other seven for laying and hatching her eggs. In our country there
are not always halcyon days about the time of the winter solstice, but
in the Sicilian seas this season of calm is almost periodical. The
bird lays about five eggs.

9

(The aithyia, or diver, and the larus, or gull, lay their eggs
on rocks bordering on the sea, two or three at a time; but the gull
lays in the summer, and the diver at the beginning of spring, just
after the winter solstice, and it broods over its eggs as birds do
in general. And neither of these birds resorts to a hiding-place. )

The halcyon is the most rarely seen of all birds. It is seen
only about the time of the setting of the Pleiads and the winter
solstice. When ships are lying at anchor in the roads, it will hover
about a vessel and then disappear in a moment, and Stesichorus in
one of his poems alludes to this peculiarity. The nightingale also
breeds at the beginning of summer, and lays five or six eggs; from
autumn until spring it retires to a hiding-place.

Insects copulate and breed in winter also, that is when the
weather is fine and south winds prevail; such, I mean, as do not
hibernate, as the fly and the ant. The greater part of wild animals
bring forth once and once only in the year, except in the case of
animals like the hare, where the female can become superfoetally
impregnated.

In like manner the great majority of fishes breed only once a
year, like the shoal-fishes (or, in other words, such as are caught in
nets), the tunny, the pelamys, the grey mullet, the chalcis, the
mackerel, the sciaena, the psetta and the like, with the exception
of the labrax or basse; for this fish (alone amongst those
mentioned) breeds twice a year, and the second brood is the weaker
of the two. The trichias and the rock-fishes breed twice a year; the
red mullet breeds thrice a year, and is exceptional in this respect.
This conclusion in regard to the red mullet is inferred from the
spawn; for the spawn of the fish may be seen in certain places at
three different times of the year. The scorpaena breeds twice a
year. The sargue breeds twice, in the spring and in the autumn. The
saupe breeds once a year only, in the autumn. The female tunny
breeds only once a year, but owing to the fact that the fish in some
cases spawn early and in others late, it looks as though the fish bred
twice over. The first spawning takes place in December before the
solstice, and the latter spawning in the spring. The male tunny
differs from the female in being unprovided with the fin beneath the
belly which is called aphareus.

10

Of cartilaginous fishes, the rhina or angelfish is the only one
that breeds twice; for it breeds at the beginning of autumn, and at
the setting of the Pleiads: and, of the two seasons, it is in better
condition in the autumn. It engenders at a birth seven or eight young.
Certain of the dog-fishes, for example the spotted dog, seem to
breed twice a month, and this results from the circumstance that the
eggs do not all reach maturity at the same time.

Some fishes breed at all seasons, as the muraena. This animal
lays a great number of eggs at a time; and the young when hatched
are very small but grow with great rapidity, like the young of the
hippurus, for these fishes from being diminutive at the outset grow
with exceptional rapidity to an exceptional size. (Be it observed that
the muraena breeds at all seasons, but the hippurus only in the
spring. The smyrus differs from the smyraena; for the muraena is
mottled and weakly, whereas the smyrus is strong and of one uniform
colour, and the colour resembles that of the pine-tree, and the animal
has teeth inside and out. They say that in this case, as in other
similar ones, the one is the male, and the other the female, of a
single species. They come out on to the land, and are frequently
caught. ) Fishes, then, as a general rule, attain their full growth
with great rapidity, but this is especially the case, among small
fishes, with the coracine or crow-fish: it spawns, by the way, near
the shore, in weedy and tangled spots. The orphus also, or
sea-perch, is small at first, and rapidly attains a great size. The
pelamys and the tunny breed in the Euxine, and nowhere else. The
cestreus or mullet, the chrysophrys or gilt-head, and the labrax or
basse, breed best where rivers run into the sea. The orcys or
large-sized tunny, the scorpis, and many other species spawn in the
open sea.

11

Fish for the most part breed some time or other during the three
months between the middle of March and the middle of June. Some few
breed in autumn: as, for instance, the saupe and the sargus, and
such others of this sort as breed shortly before the autumn equinox;
likewise the electric ray and the angel-fish. Other fishes breed
both in winter and in summer, as was previously observed: as, for
instance, in winter-time the basse, the grey mullet, and the belone or
pipe-fish; and in summer-time, from the middle of June to the middle
of July, the female tunny, about the time of the summer solstice;
and the tunny lays a sac-like enclosure in which are contained a
number of small eggs. The ryades or shoal-fishes breed in summer.

Of the grey mullets, the chelon begins to be in roe between
the middle of November and the middle of December; as also the sargue,
and the smyxon or myxon, and the cephalus; and their period of
gestation is thirty days. And, by the way, some of the grey mullet
species are not produced from copulation, but grow spontaneously
from mud and sand.

As a general rule, then, fishes are in roe in the spring-time;
while some, as has been said, are so in summer, in autumn, or in
winter. But whereas the impregnation in the spring-time follows a
general law, impregnation in the other seasons does not follow the
same rule either throughout or within the limits of one genus; and,
further, conception in these variant seasons is not so prolific.
And, indeed, we must bear this in mind, that just as with plants and
quadrupeds diversity of locality has much to do not only with
general physical health but also with the comparative frequency of
sexual intercourse and generation, so also with regard to fishes
locality of itself has much to do not only in regard to the size and
vigour of the creature, but also in regard to its parturition and
its copulations, causing the same species to breed oftener in one
place and seldomer in another.

12

The molluscs also breed in spring. Of the marine molluscs one of
the first to breed is the sepia. It spawns at all times of the day and
its period of gestation is fifteen days. After the female has laid her
eggs, the male comes and discharges the milt over the eggs, and the
eggs thereupon harden. And the two sexes of this animal go about in
pairs, side by side; and the male is more mottled and more black on
the back than the female.

The octopus pairs in winter and breeds in spring, lying hidden
for about two months. Its spawn is shaped like a vine-tendril, and
resembles the fruit of the white poplar; the creature is
extraordinarily prolific, for the number of individuals that come from
the spawn is something incalculable. The male differs from the
female in the fact that its head is longer, and that the organ
called by the fishermen its penis, in the tentacle, is white. The
female, after laying her eggs, broods over them, and in consequence
gets out of condition, by reason of not going in quest of food
during the hatching period.

The purple murex breeds about springtime, and the ceryx at the
close of the winter. And, as a general rule, the testaceans are
found to be furnished with their so-called eggs in spring-time and
in autumn, with the exception of the edible urchin; for this animal
has the so-called eggs in most abundance in these seasons, but at no
season is unfurnished with them; and it is furnished with them in
especial abundance in warm weather or when a full moon is in the
sky. Only, by the way, these remarks do not apply to the sea-urchin
found in the Pyrrhaean Straits, for this urchin is at its best for
table purposes in the winter; and these urchins are small but full
of eggs.

Snails are found by observations to become in all cases
impregnated about the same season.

13

(Of birds the wild species, as has been stated, as a general
rule pair and breed only once a year. The swallow, however, and the
blackbird breed twice. With regard to the blackbird, however, its
first brood is killed by inclemency of weather (for it is the earliest
of all birds to breed), but the second brood it usually succeeds in
rearing.

Birds that are domesticated or that are capable of domestication
breed frequently, just as the common pigeon breeds all through the
summer, and as is seen in the barn-door hen; for the barn-door cock
and hen have intercourse, and the hen breeds, at all seasons alike:
excepting by the way, during the days about the winter solstice.

Of the pigeon family there are many diversities; for the peristera
or common pigeon is not identical with the peleias or rock-pigeon.
In other words, the rock-pigeon is smaller than the common pigeon, and
is less easily domesticated; it is also black, and small, red-footed
and rough-footed; and in consequence of these peculiarities it is
neglected by the pigeon-fancier. The largest of all the pigeon species
is the phatta or ring-dove; and the next in size is the oenas or
stock-dove; and the stock-dove is a little larger than the common
pigeon. The smallest of all the species is the turtle-dove. Pigeons
breed and hatch at all seasons, if they are furnished with a sunny
place and all requisites; unless they are so furnished, they breed
only in the summer. The spring brood is the best, or the autumn brood.
At all events, without doubt, the produce of the hot season, the
summer brood, is the poorest of the three. )

14

Further, animals differ from one another in regard to the time
of life that is best adapted for sexual intercourse.

To begin with, in most animals the secretion of the seminal
fluid and its generative capacity are not phenomena simultaneously
manifested, but manifested successively. Thus, in all animals, the
earliest secretion of sperm is unfruitful, or if it be fruitful the
issue is comparatively poor and small. And this phenomenon is
especially observable in man, in viviparous quadrupeds, and in
birds; for in the case of man and the quadruped the offspring is
smaller, and in the case of the bird, the egg.

For animals that copulate, of one and the same species, the
age for maturity is in most species tolerably uniform, unless it
occurs prematurely by reason of abnormality, or is postponed by
physical injury.

In man, then, maturity is indicated by a change of the tone of
voice, by an increase in size and an alteration in appearance of the
sexual organs, as also in an increase of size and alteration in
appearance of the breasts; and above all, in the hair-growth at the
pubes. Man begins to possess seminal fluid about the age of
fourteen, and becomes generatively capable at about the age of
twenty-one years.

In other animals there is no hair-growth at the pubes (for
some animals have no hair at all, and others have none on the belly,
or less on the belly than on the back), but still, in some animals the
change of voice is quite obvious; and in some animals other organs
give indication of the commencing secretion of the sperm and the onset
of generative capacity. As a general rule the female is
sharper-toned in voice than the male, and the young animal than the
elder; for, by the way, the stag has a much deeper-toned bay than
the hind. Moreover, the male cries chiefly at rutting time, and the
female under terror and alarm; and the cry of the female is short, and
that of the male prolonged. With dogs also, as they grow old, the tone
of the bark gets deeper.

There is a difference observable also in the neighings of
horses. That is to say, the female foal has a thin small neigh, and
the male foal a small neigh, yet bigger and deeper-toned than that
of the female, and a louder one as time goes on. And when the young
male and female are two years old and take to breeding, the neighing
of the stallion becomes loud and deep, and that of the mare louder and
shriller than heretofore; and this change goes on until they reach the
age of about twenty years; and after this time the neighing in both
sexes becomes weaker and weaker.

As a rule, then, as was stated, the voice of the male differs
from the voice of the female, in animals where the voice admits of a
continuous and prolonged sound, in the fact that the note in the
male voice is more deep and bass; not, however, in all animals, for
the contrary holds good in the case of some, as for instance in
kine: for here the cow has a deeper note than the bull, and the calves
a deeper note than the cattle. And we can thus understand the change
of voice in animals that undergo gelding; for male animals that
undergo this process assume the characters of the female.

The following are the ages at which various animals become
capacitated for sexual commerce. The ewe and the she-goat are sexually
mature when one year old, and this statement is made more
confidently in respect to the she-goat than to the ewe; the ram and
the he-goat are sexually mature at the same age. The progeny of very
young individuals among these animals differs from that of other
males: for the males improve in the course of the second year, when
they become fully mature. The boar and the sow are capable of
intercourse when eight months old, and the female brings forth when
one year old, the difference corresponding to her period of gestation.
The boar is capable of generation when eight months old, but, with a
sire under a year in age, the litter is apt to be a poor one. The
ages, however, are not invariable; now and then the boar and the sow
are capable of intercourse when four months old, and are capable of
producing a litter which can be reared when six months old; but at
times the boar begins to be capable of intercourse when ten months. He
continues sexually mature until he is three years old. The dog and the
bitch are, as a rule, sexually capable and sexually receptive when a
year old, and sometimes when eight months old; but the priority in
date is more common with the dog than with the bitch. The period of
gestation with the bitch is sixty days, or sixty-one, or sixty-two, or
sixty-three at the utmost; the period is never under sixty days, or,
if it is, the litter comes to no good. The bitch, after delivering a
litter, submits to the male in six months, but not before. The horse
and the mare are, at the earliest, sexually capable and sexually
mature when two years old; the issue, however, of parents of this
age is small and poor. As a general rule these animals are sexually
capable when three years old, and they grow better for breeding
purposes until they reach twenty years. The stallion is sexually
capable up to the age of thirty-three years, and the mare up to forty,
so that, in point of fact, the animals are sexually capable all
their lives long; for the stallion, as a rule, lives for about
thirty-five years, and the mare for a little over forty; although,
by the way, a horse has known to live to the age of seventy-five.
The ass and the she-ass are sexually capable when thirty months old;
but, as a rule, they are not generatively mature until they are
three years old, or three years and a half. An instance has been known
of a she-ass bearing and bringing forth a foal when only a year old. A
cow has been known to calve when only a year old, and the calf grew as
big as might be expected, but no more. So much for the dates in time
at which these animals attain to generative capacity.

In the human species, the male is generative, at the longest, up
to seventy years, and the female up to fifty; but such extended
periods are rare. As a rule, the male is generative up to the age of
sixty-five, and to the age of forty-five the female is capable of
conception.

The ewe bears up to eight years, and, if she be carefully
tended, up to eleven years; in fact, the ram and the ewe are
sexually capable pretty well all their lives long. He-goats, if they
be fat, are more or less unserviceable for breeding; and this, by
the way, is the reason why country folk say of a vine when it stops
bearing that it is 'running the goat'.
However, if an over-fat he-goat
be thinned down, he becomes sexually capable and generative.

Rams single out the oldest ewes for copulation, and show no
regard for the young ones. And, as has been stated, the issue of the
younger ewes is poorer than that of the older ones.

The boar is good for breeding purposes until he is three years
of age; but after that age his issue deteriorates, for after that
age his vigour is on the decline. The boar is most capable after a
good feed, and with the first sow it mounts; if poorly fed or put to
many females, the copulation is abbreviated, and the litter is
comparatively poor. The first litter of the sow is the fewest in
number; at the second litter she is at her prime. The animal, as it
grows old, continues to breed, but the sexual desire abates. When they
reach fifteen years, they become unproductive, and are getting old. If
a sow be highly fed, it is all the more eager for sexual commerce,
whether old or young; but, if it be over-fattened in pregnancy, it
gives the less milk after parturition. With regard to the age of the
parents, the litter is the best when they are in their prime; but with
regard to the seasons of the year, the litter is the best that comes
at the beginning of winter; and the summer litter the poorest,
consisting as it usually does of animals small and thin and flaccid.
The boar, if it be well fed, is sexually capable at all hours, night
and day; but otherwise is peculiarly salacious early in the morning.
As it grows old the sexual passion dies away, as we have already
remarked. Very often a boar, when more or less impotent from age or
debility, finding itself unable to accomplish the sexual commerce with
due speed, and growing fatigued with the standing posture, will roll
the sow over on the ground, and the pair will conclude the operation
side by side of one another. The sow is sure of conception if it drops
its lugs in rutting time; if the ears do not thus drop, it may have to
rut a second time before impregnation takes place.

Bitches do not submit to the male throughout their lives, but
only until they reach a certain maturity of years. As a general
rule, they are sexually receptive and conceptive until they are twelve
years old; although, by the way, cases have been known where dogs
and bitches have been respectively procreative and conceptive to the
ages of eighteen and even of twenty years. But, as a rule, age
diminishes the capability of generation and of conception with these
animals as with all others.

The female of the camel is opisthuretic, and submits to the male
in the way above described; and the season for copulation in Arabia is
about the month of October. Its period of gestation is twelve
months; and it is never delivered of more than one foal at a time. The
female becomes sexually receptive and the male sexually capable at the
age of three years. After parturition, an interval of a year elapses
before the female is again receptive to the male.

The female elephant becomes sexually receptive when ten years
old at the youngest, and when fifteen at the oldest; and the male is
sexually capable when five years old, or six. The season for
intercourse is spring. The male allows an interval of three years to
elapse after commerce with a female: and, after it has once
impregnated a female, it has no intercourse with her again. The period
of gestation with the female is two years; and only one young animal
is produced at a time, in other words it is uniparous. And the
embryo is the size of a calf two or three months old.

15

So much for the copulations of such animals as copulate.

We now proceed to treat of generation both with respect to
copulating and non-copulating animals, and we shall commence with
discussing the subject of generation in the case of the testaceans.

The testacean is almost the only genus that throughout all its
species is non-copulative.

The porphyrae, or purple murices, gather together to some one
place in the spring-time, and deposit the so-called 'honeycomb'.
This substance resembles the comb, only that it is not so neat and
delicate; and looks as though a number of husks of white chick-peas
were all stuck together. But none of these structures has any open
passage, and the porphyra does not grow out of them, but these and all
other testaceans grow out of mud and decaying matter. The substance,
is, in fact, an excretion of the porphyra and the ceryx; for it is
deposited by the ceryx as well. Such, then, of the testaceans as
deposit the honeycomb are generated spontaneously like all other
testaceans, but they certainly come in greater abundance in places
where their congeners have been living previously. At the commencement
of the process of depositing the honeycomb, they throw off a
slippery mucus, and of this the husklike formations are composed.
These formations, then, all melt and deposit their contents on the
ground, and at this spot there are found on the ground a number of
minute porphyrae, and porphyrae are caught at times with these
animalculae upon them, some of which are too small to be
differentiated in form. If the porphyrae are caught before producing
this honey-comb, they sometimes go through the process in
fishing-creels, not here and there in the baskets, but gathering to
some one spot all together, just as they do in the sea; and owing to
the narrowness of their new quarters they cluster together like a
bunch of grapes.

There are many species of the purple murex; and some are
large, as those found off Sigeum and Lectum; others are small, as
those found in the Euripus, and on the coast of Caria. And those
that are found in bays are large and rough; in most of them the
peculiar bloom from which their name is derived is dark to
blackness, in others it is reddish and small in size; some of the
large ones weigh upwards of a mina apiece. But the specimens that
are found along the coast and on the rocks are small-sized, and the
bloom in their case is of a reddish hue. Further, as a general rule,
in northern waters the bloom is blackish, and in southern waters of
a reddish hue. The murex is caught in the spring-time when engaged
in the construction of the honeycomb; but it is not caught at any time
about the rising of the dog-star, for at that period it does not feed,
but conceals itself and burrows. The bloom of the animal is situated
between the mecon (or quasi-liver) and the neck, and the co-attachment
of these is an intimate one. In colour it looks like a white membrane,
and this is what people extract; and if it be removed and squeezed
it stains your hand with the colour of the bloom. There is a kind of
vein that runs through it, and this quasi-vein would appear to be in
itself the bloom. And the qualities, by the way, of this organ are
astringent. It is after the murex has constructed the honeycomb that
the bloom is at its worst. Small specimens they break in pieces,
shells and all, for it is no easy matter to extract the organ; but
in dealing with the larger ones they first strip off the shell and
then abstract the bloom. For this purpose the neck and mecon are
separated, for the bloom lies in between them, above the so-called
stomach; hence the necessity of separating them in abstracting the
bloom. Fishermen are anxious always to break the animal in pieces
while it is yet alive, for, if it die before the process is completed,
it vomits out the bloom; and for this reason the fishermen keep the
animals in creels, until they have collected a sufficient number and
can attend to them at their leisure. Fishermen in past times used
not to lower creels or attach them to the bait, so that very often the
animal got dropped off in the pulling up; at present, however, they
always attach a basket, so that if the animal fall off it is not lost.
The animal is more inclined to slip off the bait if it be full inside;
if it be empty it is difficult to shake it off. Such are the phenomena
connected with the porphyra or murex.

The same phenomena are manifested by the ceryx or trumpet-shell;
and the seasons are the same in which the phenomena are observable.
Both animals, also, the murex and the ceryx, have their opercula
similarly situated-and, in fact, all the stromboids, and this is
congenital with them all; and they feed by protruding the so-called
tongue underneath the operculum. The tongue of the murex is bigger
than one's finger, and by means of it, it feeds, and perforates
conchylia and the shells of its own kind. Both the murex and the ceryx
are long lived. The murex lives for about six years; and the yearly
increase is indicated by a distinct interval in the spiral convolution
of the shell.

The mussel also constructs a honeycomb.

With regard to the limnostreae, or lagoon oysters, wherever you
have slimy mud there you are sure to find them beginning to grow.
Cockles and clams and razor-fishes and scallops row spontaneously in
sandy places. The pinna grows straight up from its tuft of anchoring
fibres in sandy and slimy places; these creatures have inside them a
parasite nicknamed the pinna-guard, in some cases a small carid and in
other cases a little crab; if the pinna be deprived of this
pinna-guard it soon dies.

As a general rule, then, all testaceans grow by spontaneous
generation in mud, differing from one another according to the
differences of the material; oysters growing in slime, and cockles and
the other testaceans above mentioned on sandy bottoms; and in the
hollows of the rocks the ascidian and the barnacle, and common
sorts, such as the limpet and the nerites. All these animals grow with
great rapidity, especially the murex and the scallop; for the murex
and the scallop attain their full growth in a year. In some of the
testaceans white crabs are found, very diminutive in size; they are
most numerous in the trough shaped mussel. In the pinna also is
found the so-called pinna-guard. They are found also in the scallop
and in the oyster; these parasites never appear to grow in size.
Fishermen declare that the parasite is congenital with the larger
animal. (Scallops burrow for a time in the sand, like the murex. )

(Shell-fish, then, grow in the way above mentioned; and some
of them grow in shallow water, some on the sea-shore, some in rocky
places, some on hard and stony ground, and some in sandy places. ) Some
shift about from place to place, others remain permanent on one
spot. Of those that keep to one spot the pinnae are rooted to the
ground; the razor-fish and the clam keep to the same locality, but are
not so rooted; but still, if forcibly removed they die.

(The star-fish is naturally so warm that whatever it lays hold
of is found, when suddenly taken away from the animal, to have
undergone a process like boiling. Fishermen say that the star-fish
is a great pest in the Strait of Pyrrha. In shape it resembles a
star as seen in an ordinary drawing. The so-called 'lungs' are
generated spontaneously. The shells that painters use are a good
deal thicker, and the bloom is outside the shell on the surface. These
creatures are mostly found on the coast of Caria. )

The hermit-crab grows spontaneously out of soil and slime, and
finds its way into untenanted shells. As it grows it shifts to a
larger shell, as for instance into the shell of the nerites, or of the
strombus or the like, and very often into the shell of the small
ceryx. After entering new shell, it carries it about, and begins again
to feed, and, by and by, as it grows, it shifts again into another
larger one.

16

Moreover, the animals that are unfurnished with shells grow
spontaneously, like the testaceans, as, for instance, the
sea-nettles and the sponges in rocky caves.

Of the sea-nettle, or sea-anemone, there are two species; and of
these one species lives in hollows and never loosens its hold upon the
rocks, and the other lives on smooth flat reefs, free and detached,
and shifts its position from time to time. (Limpets also detach
themselves, and shift from place to place. )

In the chambered cavities of sponges pinna-guards or parasites are
found. And over the chambers there is a kind of spider's web, by the
opening and closing of which they catch mute fishes; that is to say,
they open the web to let the fish get in, and close it again to entrap
them.

Of sponges there are three species; the first is of loose porous
texture, the second is close textured, the third, which is nicknamed
'the sponge of Achilles', is exceptionally fine and close-textured and
strong. This sponge is used as a lining to helmets and greaves, for
the purpose of deadening the sound of the blow; and this is a very
scarce species. Of the close textured sponges such as are particularly
hard and rough are nicknamed 'goats'.

Sponges grow spontaneously either attached to a rock or on
sea-beaches, and they get their nutriment in slime: a proof of this
statement is the fact that when they are first secured they are
found to be full of slime. This is characteristic of all living
creatures that get their nutriment by close local attachment. And,
by the way, the close-textured sponges are weaker than the more openly
porous ones because their attachment extends over a smaller area.

It is said that the sponge is sensitive; and as a proof of
this statement they say that if the sponge is made aware of an attempt
being made to pluck it from its place of attachment it draws itself
together, and it becomes a difficult task to detach it. It makes a
similar contractile movement in windy and boisterous weather,
obviously with the object of tightening its hold. Some persons express
doubts as to the truth of this assertion; as, for instance, the people
of Torone.

The sponge breeds parasites, worms, and other creatures, on
which, if they be detached, the rock-fishes prey, as they prey also on
the remaining stumps of the sponge; but, if the sponge be broken
off, it grows again from the remaining stump and the place is soon
as well covered as before.

The largest of all sponges are the loose-textured ones, and
these are peculiarly abundant on the coast of Lycia. The softest are
the close-textured sponges; for, by the way, the so-called sponges
of Achilles are harder than these. As a general rule, sponges that are
found in deep calm waters are the softest; for usually windy and
stormy weather has a tendency to harden them (as it has to harden
all similar growing things), and to arrest their growth. And this
accounts for the fact that the sponges found in the Hellespont are
rough and close-textured; and, as a general rule, sponges found beyond
or inside Cape Malea are, respectively, comparatively soft or
comparatively hard. But, by the way, the habitat of the sponge
should not be too sheltered and warm, for it has a tendency to
decay, like all similar vegetable-like growths. And this accounts
for the fact that the sponge is at its best when found in deep water
close to shore; for owing to the depth of the water they enjoy shelter
alike from stormy winds and from excessive heat.

Whilst they are still alive and before they are washed and
cleaned, they are blackish in colour. Their attachment is not made
at one particular spot, nor is it made all over their bodies; for
vacant pore-spaces intervene. There is a kind of membrane stretched
over the under parts; and in the under parts the points of
attachment are the more numerous. On the top most of the pores are
closed, but four or five are open and visible; and we are told by some
that it is through these pores that the animal takes its food.

There is a particular species that is named the 'aplysia' or the
'unwashable', from the circumstance that it cannot be cleaned. This
species has the large open and visible pores, but all the rest of
the body is close-textured; and, if it be dissected, it is found to be
closer and more glutinous than the ordinary sponge, and, in a word,
something lung like in consistency. And, on all hands, it is allowed
that this species is sensitive and long-lived. They are
distinguished in the sea from ordinary sponges from the circumstance
that the ordinary sponges are white while the slime is in them, but
that these sponges are under any circumstances black.

And so much with regard to sponges and to generation in the
testaceans.

17

Of crustaceans, the female crawfish after copulation conceives and
retains its eggs for about three months, from about the middle of
May to about the middle of August; they then lay the eggs into the
folds underneath the belly, and their eggs grow like grubs. This
same phenomenon is observable in molluscs also, and in such fishes
as are oviparous; for in all these cases the egg continues to grow.

The spawn of the crawfish is of a loose or granular consistency,
and is divided into eight parts; for corresponding to each of the
flaps on the side there is a gristly formation to which the spawn is
attached, and the entire structure resembles a cluster of grapes;
for each gristly formation is split into several parts. This is
obvious enough if you draw the parts asunder; but at first sight the
whole appears to be one and indivisible. And the largest are not those
nearest to the outlet but those in the middle, and the farthest off
are the smallest. The size of the small eggs is that of a small seed
in a fig; and they are not quite close to the outlet, but placed
middleways; for at both ends, tailwards and trunkwards, there are
two intervals devoid of eggs; for it is thus that the flaps also grow.
The side flaps, then, cannot close, but by placing the end flap on
them the animal can close up all, and this end-flap serves them for
a lid. And in the act of laying its eggs it seems to bring them
towards the gristly formations by curving the flap of its tail, and
then, squeezing the eggs towards the said gristly formations and
maintaining a bent posture, it performs the act of laying. The gristly
formations at these seasons increase in size and become receptive of
the eggs; for the animal lays its eggs into these formations, just
as the sepia lays its eggs among twigs and driftwood.

It lays its eggs, then, in this manner, and after hatching
them for about twenty days it rids itself of them all in one solid
lump, as is quite plain from outside. And out of these eggs crawfish
form in about fifteen days, and these crawfish are caught at times
less then a finger's breadth, or seven-tenths of an inch, in length.
The animal, then, lays its eggs before the middle of September, and
after the middle of that month throws off its eggs in a lump. With the
humped carids or prawns the time for gestation is four months or
thereabouts.

Crawfish are found in rough and rocky places, lobsters in smooth
places, and neither crawfish nor lobsters are found in muddy ones; and
this accounts for the fact that lobsters are found in the Hellespont
and on the coast of Thasos, and crawfish in the neighbourhood of
Sigeum and Mount Athos. Fishermen, accordingly, when they want to
catch these various creatures out at sea, take bearings on the beach
and elsewhere that tell them where the ground at the bottom is stony
and where soft with slime. In winter and spring these animals keep
in near to land, in summer they keep in deep water; thus at various
times seeking respectively for warmth or coolness.

The so-called arctus or bear-crab lays its eggs at about the
same time as the crawfish; and consequently in winter and in the
spring-time, before laying their eggs, they are at their best, and
after laying at their worst.

They cast their shell in the spring-time (just as serpents
shed their so-called 'old-age' or slough), both directly after birth
and in later life; this is true both of crabs and crawfish. And, by
the way, all crawfish are long lived.

18

Molluscs, after pairing and copulation, lay a white spawn; and
this spawn, as in the case of the testacean, gets granular in time.
The octopus discharges into its hole, or into a potsherd or into any
similar cavity, a structure resembling the tendrils of a young vine or
the fruit of the white poplar, as has been previously observed. The
eggs, when the female has laid them, are clustered round the sides
of the hole. They are so numerous that, if they be removed they
suffice to fill a vessel much larger than the animal's body in which
they were contained. Some fifty days later, the eggs burst and the
little polypuses creep out, like little spiders, in great numbers; the
characteristic form of their limbs is not yet to be discerned in
detail, but their general outline is clear enough. And, by the way,
they are so small and helpless that the greater number perish; it is a
fact that they have been seen so extremely minute as to be
absolutely without organization, but nevertheless when touched they
moved. The eggs of the sepia look like big black myrtle-berries, and
they are linked all together like a bunch of grapes, clustered round a
centre, and are not easily sundered from one another: for the male
exudes over them some moist glairy stuff, which constitutes the sticky
gum. These eggs increase in size; and they are white at the outset,
but black and larger after the sprinkling of the male seminal fluid.

When it has come into being the young sepia is first
distinctly formed inside out of the white substance, and when the
egg bursts it comes out. The inner part is formed as soon as the
female lays the egg, something like a hail-stone; and out of this
substance the young sepia grows by a head-attachment, just as young
birds grow by a belly-attachment. What is the exact nature of the
navel-attachment has not yet been observed, except that as the young
sepia grows the white substance grows less and less in size, and at
length, as happens with the yolk in the case of birds, the white
substance in the case of the young sepia disappears. In the case of
the young sepia, as in the case of the young of most animals, the eyes
at first seem very large. To illustrate this by way of a figure, let A
represent the ovum, B and C the eyes, and D the sepidium, or body of
the little sepia. (See diagram. )

The female sepia goes pregnant in the spring-time, and lays
its eggs after fifteen days of gestation; after the eggs are laid
there comes in another fifteen days something like a bunch of
grapes, and at the bursting of these the young sepiae issue forth. But
if, when the young ones are fully formed, you sever the outer covering
a moment too soon, the young creatures eject excrement, and their
colour changes from white to red in their alarm.

Crustaceans, then, hatch their eggs by brooding over them as
they carry them about beneath their bodies; but the octopus, the
sepia, and the like hatch their eggs without stirring from the spot
where they may have laid them, and this statement is particularly
applicable to the sepia; in fact, the nest of the female sepia is
often seen exposed to view close in to shore. The female octopus at
times sits brooding over her eggs, and at other times squats in
front of her hole, stretching out her tentacles on guard.

The sepia lays her spawn near to land in the neighbourhood of
sea-weed or reeds or any off-sweepings such as brushwood, twigs, or
stones; and fishermen place heaps of faggots here and there on
purpose, and on to such heaps the female deposits a long continuous
roe in shape like a vine tendril. It lays or spirts out the spawn with
an effort, as though there were difficulty in the process. The
female calamary spawns at sea; and it emits the spawn, as does the
sepia, in the mass.

The calamary and the cuttle-fish are short-lived, as, with few
exceptions, they never see the year out; and the same statement is
applicable to the octopus.

From one single egg comes one single sepia; and this is likewise
true of the young calamary.

The male calamary differs from the female; for if its
gill-region be dilated and examined there are found two red formations
resembling breasts, with which the male is unprovided. In the sepia,
apart from this distinction in the sexes, the male, as has been
stated, is more mottled than the female.

19

With regard to insects, that the male is less than the female
and that he mounts upon her back, and how he performs the act of
copulation and the circumstance that he gives over reluctantly, all
this has already been set forth, most cases of insect copulation
this process is speedily followed up by parturition.

All insects engender grubs, with the exception of a species of
butterfly; and the female of this species lays a hard egg,
resembling the seed of the cnecus, with a juice inside it. But from
the grub, the young animal does not grow out of a mere portion of
it, as a young animal grows from a portion only of an egg, but the
grub entire grows and the animal becomes differentiated out of it.

And of insects some are derived from insect congeners, as the
venom-spider and the common-spider from the venom-spider and the
common-spider, and so with the attelabus or locust, the acris or
grasshopper, and the tettix or cicada. Other insects are not derived
from living parentage, but are generated spontaneously: some out of
dew falling on leaves, ordinarily in spring-time, but not seldom in
winter when there has been a stretch of fair weather and southerly
winds; others grow in decaying mud or dung; others in timber, green or
dry; some in the hair of animals; some in the flesh of animals; some
in excrements: and some from excrement after it has been voided, and
some from excrement yet within the living animal, like the
helminthes or intestinal worms. And of these intestinal worms there
are three species: one named the flat-worm, another the round worm,
and the third the ascarid. These intestinal worms do not in any case
propagate their kind. The flat-worm, however, in an exceptional way,
clings fast to the gut, and lays a thing like a melon-seed, by
observing which indication the physician concludes that his patient is
troubled with the worm.

The so-called psyche or butterfly is generated from caterpillars
which grow on green leaves, chiefly leaves of the raphanus, which some
call crambe or cabbage. At first it is less than a grain of millet; it
then grows into a small grub; and in three days it is a tiny
caterpillar. After this it grows on and on, and becomes quiescent
and changes its shape, and is now called a chrysalis. The outer
shell is hard, and the chrysalis moves if you touch it. It attaches
itself by cobweb-like filaments, and is unfurnished with mouth or
any other apparent organ. After a little while the outer covering
bursts asunder, and out flies the winged creature that we call the
psyche or butterfly. At first, when it is a caterpillar, it feeds
and ejects excrement; but when it turns into the chrysalis it
neither feeds nor ejects excrement.

The same remarks are applicable to all such insects as are
developed out of the grub, both such grubs as are derived from the
copulation of living animals and such as are generated without
copulation on the part of parents. For the grub of the bee, the
anthrena, and the wasp, whilst it is young, takes food and voids
excrement; but when it has passed from the grub shape to its defined
form and become what is termed a 'nympha', it ceases to take food
and to void excrement, and remains tightly wrapped up and motionless
until it has reached its full size, when it breaks the formation
with which the cell is closed, and issues forth. The insects named the
hypera and the penia are derived from similar caterpillars, which move
in an undulatory way, progressing with one part and then pulling up
the hinder parts by a bend of the body. The developed insect in each
case takes its peculiar colour from the parent caterpillar.

From one particular large grub, which has as it were horns, and in
other respects differs from grubs in general, there comes, by a
metamorphosis of the grub, first a caterpillar, then the cocoon,
then the necydalus; and the creature passes through all these
transformations within six months. A class of women unwind and reel
off the cocoons of these creatures, and afterwards weave a fabric with
the threads thus unwound; a Coan woman of the name of Pamphila,
daughter of Plateus, being credited with the first invention of the
fabric. After the same fashion the carabus or stag-beetle comes from
grubs that live in dry wood: at first the grub is motionless, but
after a while the shell bursts and the stag-beetle issues forth.

From the cabbage is engendered the cabbageworm, and from the
leek the prasocuris or leekbane; this creature is also winged. From
the flat animalcule that skims over the surface of rivers comes the
oestrus or gadfly; and this accounts for the fact that gadflies most
abound in the neighbourhood of waters on whose surface these
animalcules are observed. From a certain small, black and hairy
caterpillar comes first a wingless glow-worm; and this creature
again suffers a metamorphosis, and transforms into a winged insect
named the bostrychus (or hair-curl).

Gnats grow from ascarids; and ascarids are engendered in the
slime of wells, or in places where there is a deposit left by the
draining off of water. This slime decays, and first turns white,
then black, and finally blood-red; and at this stage there originate
in it, as it were, little tiny bits of red weed, which at first
wriggle about all clinging together, and finally break loose and
swim in the water, and are hereupon known as ascarids. After a few
days they stand straight up on the water motionless and hard, and by
and by the husk breaks off and the gnats are seen sitting upon it,
until the sun's heat or a puff of wind sets them in motion, when
they fly away.

With all grubs and all animals that break out from the grub
state, generation is due primarily to the heat of the sun or to wind.

Ascarids are more likely to be found, and grow with unusual
rapidity, in places where there is a deposit of a mixed and
heterogeneous kind, as in kitchens and in ploughed fields, for the
contents of such places are disposed to rapid putrefaction. In autumn,
also, owing to the drying up of moisture, they grow in unusual
numbers.

The tick is generated from couch-grass. The cockchafer comes
from a grub that is generated in the dung of the cow or the ass. The
cantharus or scarabeus rolls a piece of dung into a ball, lies
hidden within it during the winter, and gives birth therein to small
grubs, from which grubs come new canthari. Certain winged insects also
come from the grubs that are found in pulse, in the same fashion as in
the cases described.

Flies grow from grubs in the dung that farmers have gathered
up into heaps: for those who are engaged in this work assiduously
gather up the compost, and this they technically term 'working-up' the
manure. The grub is exceedingly minute to begin with; first even at
this stage-it assumes a reddish colour, and then from a quiescent
state it takes on the power of motion, as though born to it; it then
becomes a small motionless grub; it then moves again, and again
relapses into immobility; it then comes out a perfect fly, and moves
away under the influence of the sun's heat or of a puff of air. The
myops or horse-fly is engendered in timber. The orsodacna or budbane
is a transformed grub; and this grub is engendered in
cabbage-stalks. The cantharis comes from the caterpillars that are
found on fig-trees or pear-trees or fir-trees--for on all these
grubs are engendered-and also from caterpillars found on the dog-rose;
and the cantharis takes eagerly to ill-scented substances, from the
fact of its having been engendered in ill-scented woods. The conops
comes from a grub that is engendered in the slime of vinegar.

And, by the way, living animals are found in substances that are
usually supposed to be incapable of putrefaction; for instance,
worms are found in long-lying snow; and snow of this description
gets reddish in colour, and the grub that is engendered in it is
red, as might have been expected, and it is also hairy. The grubs
found in the snows of Media are large and white; and all such grubs
are little disposed to motion. In Cyprus, in places where copper-ore
is smelted, with heaps of the ore piled on day after day, an animal is
engendered in the fire, somewhat larger than a blue bottle fly,
furnished with wings, which can hop or crawl through the fire. And the
grubs and these latter animals perish when you keep the one away
from the fire and the other from the snow. Now the salamander is a
clear case in point, to show us that animals do actually exist that
fire cannot destroy; for this creature, so the story goes, not only
walks through the fire but puts it out in doing so.