No More Learning

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.

On the river Hypanis in the Cimmerian Bosphorus, about the
time of the summer solstice, there are brought down towards the sea by
the stream what look like little sacks rather bigger than grapes,
out of which at their bursting issues a winged quadruped. The insect
lives and flies about until the evening, but as the sun goes down it
pines away, and dies at sunset having lived just one day, from which
circumstance it is called the ephemeron.

As a rule, insects that come from caterpillars and grubs are
held at first by filaments resembling the threads of a spider's web.

Such is the mode of generation of the insects above
enumerated. but if the latter impregnation takes placeduring the
change of the yellow

20

The wasps that are nicknamed 'the ichneumons' (or hunters), less
in size, by the way, than the ordinary wasp, kill spiders and carry
off the dead bodies to a wall or some such place with a hole in it;
this hole they smear over with mud and lay their grubs inside it,
and from the grubs come the hunter-wasps. Some of the coleoptera and
of the small and nameless insects make small holes or cells of mud
on a wall or on a grave-stone, and there deposit their grubs.

With insects, as a general rule, the time of generation from its
commencement to its completion comprises three or four weeks. With
grubs and grub-like creatures the time is usually three weeks, and
in the oviparous insects as a rule four. But, in the case of oviparous
insects, the egg-formation comes at the close of seven days from
copulation, and during the remaining three weeks the parent broods
over and hatches its young; i. e. where this is the result of
copulation, as in the case of the spider and its congeners. As a rule,
the transformations take place in intervals of three or four days,
corresponding to the lengths of interval at which the crises recur
in intermittent fevers.

So much for the generation of insects. Their death is due to the
shrivelling of their organs, just as the larger animals die of old
age.

Winged insects die in autumn from the shrinking of their wings.
The myops dies from dropsy in the eyes.

21

With regard to the generation of bees different hypotheses are
in vogue. Some affirm that bees neither copulate nor give birth to
young, but that they fetch their young. And some say that they fetch
their young from the flower of the callyntrum; others assert that they
bring them from the flower of the reed, others, from the flower of the
olive. And in respect to the olive theory, it is stated as a proof
that, when the olive harvest is most abundant, the swarms are most
numerous. Others declare that they fetch the brood of the drones
from such things as above mentioned, but that the working bees are
engendered by the rulers of the hive.

Now of these rulers there are two kinds: the better kind is
red in colour, the inferior kind is black and variegated; the ruler is
double the size of the working bee. These rulers have the abdomen or
part below the waist half as large again, and they are called by
some the 'mothers', from an idea that they bear or generate the
bees; and, as a proof of this theory of their motherhood, they declare
that the brood of the drones appears even when there is no ruler-bee
in the hive, but that the bees do not appear in his absence. Others,
again, assert that these insects copulate, and that the drones are
male and the bees female.

The ordinary bee is generated in the cells of the comb, but
the ruler-bees in cells down below attached to the comb, suspended
from it, apart from the rest, six or seven in number, and growing in a
way quite different from the mode of growth of the ordinary brood.

Bees are provided with a sting, but the drones are not so
provided. The rulers are provided with stings, but they never use
them; and this latter circumstance will account for the belief of some
people that they have no stings at all.

22

Of bees there are various species. The best kind is a little round
mottled insect; another is long, and resembles the anthrena; a third
is a black and flat-bellied, and is nick-named the 'robber'; a
fourth kind is the drone, the largest of all, but stingless and
inactive. And this proportionate size of the drone explains why some
bee-masters place a net-work in front of the hives; for the network is
put to keep the big drones out while it lets the little bees go in.

Of the king bees there are, as has been stated, two kinds. In
every hive there are more kings than one; and a hive goes to ruin if
there be too few kings, not because of anarchy thereby ensuing, but,
as we are told, because these creatures contribute in some way to
the generation of the common bees. A hive will go also to ruin if
there be too large a number of kings in it; for the members of the
hives are thereby subdivided into too many separate factions.

Whenever the spring-time is late a-coming, and when there is
drought and mildew, then the progeny of the hive is small in number.
But when the weather is dry they attend to the honey, and in rainy
weather their attention is concentrated on the brood; and this will
account for the coincidence of rich olive-harvests and abundant
swarms.

The bees first work at the honeycomb, and then put the pupae
in it: by the mouth, say those who hold the theory of their bringing
them from elsewhere. After putting in the pupae they put in the
honey for subsistence, and this they do in the summer and autumn; and,
by the way, the autumn honey is the better of the two.

The honeycomb is made from flowers, and the materials for the
wax they gather from the resinous gum of trees, while honey is
distilled from dew, and is deposited chiefly at the risings of the
constellations or when a rainbow is in the sky: and as a general
rule there is no honey before the rising of the Pleiads. (The bee,
then, makes the wax from flowers. The honey, however, it does not
make, but merely gathers what is deposited out of the atmosphere;
and as a proof of this statement we have the known fact that
occasionally bee-keepers find the hives filled with honey within the
space of two or three days. Furthermore, in autumn flowers are
found, but honey, if it be withdrawn, is not replaced; now, after
the withdrawal of the original honey, when no food or very little is
in the hives, there would be a fresh stock of honey, if the bees
made it from flowers. ) Honey, if allowed to ripen and mature, gathers
consistency; for at first it is like water and remains liquid for
several days. If it be drawn off during these days it has no
consistency; but it attains consistency in about twenty days. The
taste of thyme-honey is discernible at once, from its peculiar
sweetness and consistency.

The bee gathers from every flower that is furnished with a calyx
or cup, and from all other flowers that are sweet-tasted, without
doing injury to any fruit; and the juices of the flowers it takes up
with the organ that resembles a tongue and carries off to the hive.

Swarms are robbed of their honey on the appearance of the wild
fig. They produce the best larvae at the time the honey is a-making.
The bee carries wax and bees' bread round its legs, but vomits the
honey into the cell. After depositing its young, it broods over it
like a bird. The grub when it is small lies slantwise in the comb, but
by and by rises up straight by an effort of its own and takes food,
and holds on so tightly to the honeycomb as actually to cling to it.

The young of bees and of drones is white, and from the young
come the grubs; and the grubs grow into bees and drones. The egg of
the king bee is reddish in colour, and its substance is about as
consistent as thick honey; and from the first it is about as big as
the bee that is produced from it. From the young of the king bee there
is no intermediate stage, it is said, of the grub, but the bee comes
at once.

Whenever the bee lays an egg in the comb there is always a
drop of honey set against it. The larva of the bee gets feet and wings
as soon as the cell has been stopped up with wax, and when it
arrives at its completed form it breaks its membrane and flies away.
It ejects excrement in the grub state, but not afterwards; that is,
not until it has got out of the encasing membrane, as we have
already described. If you remove the heads from off the larvae
before the coming of the wings, the bees will eat them up; and if
you nip off the wings from a drone and let it go, the bees will
spontaneously bite off the wings from off all the remaining drones.

The bee lives for six years as a rule, as an exception for seven
years. If a swarm lasts for nine years, or ten, great credit is
considered due to its management.

In Pontus are found bees exceedingly white in colour, and
these bees produce their honey twice a month. (The bees in Themiscyra,
on the banks of the river Thermodon, build honeycombs in the ground
and in hives, and these honeycombs are furnished with very little wax
but with honey of great consistency; and the honeycomb, by the way,
is smooth and level. ) But this is not always the case with these bees,
but only in the winter season; for in Pontus the ivy is abundant,
and it flowers at this time of the year, and it is from the ivy-flower
that they derive their honey. A white and very consistent honey is
brought down from the upper country to Amisus, which is deposited by
bees on trees without the employment of honeycombs: and this kind of
honey is produced in other districts in Pontus.

There are bees also that construct triple honeycombs in the
ground; and these honeycombs supply honey but never contain grubs. But
the honeycombs in these places are not all of this sort, nor do all
the bees construct them.

23

Anthrenae and wasps construct combs for their young. When they
have no king, but are wandering about in search of one, the anthrene
constructs its comb on some high place, and the wasp inside a hole.
When the anthrene and the wasp have a king, they construct their combs
underground. Their combs are in all cases hexagonal like the comb of
the bee. They are composed, however, not of wax, but of a bark-like
filamented fibre, and the comb of the anthrene is much neater than the
comb of the wasp. Like the bee, they put their young just like a
drop of liquid on to the side of the cell, and the egg clings to the
wall of the cell. But the eggs are not deposited in the cells
simultaneously; on the contrary, in some cells are creatures big
enough to fly, in others are nymphae, and in others are mere grubs. As
in the case of bees, excrement is observed only in the cells where the
grubs are found. As long as the creatures are in the nymph condition
they are motionless, and the cell is cemented over. In the comb of the
anthrene there is found in the cell of the young a drop of honey in
front of it. The larvae of the anthrene and the wasp make their
appearance not in the spring but in the autumn; and their growth is
especially discernible in times of full moon. And, by the way, the
eggs and the grubs never rest at the bottom of the cells, but always
cling on to the side wall.

24

There is a kind of humble-bee that builds a cone-shaped nest of
clay against a stone or in some similar situation, besmearing the clay
with something like spittle. And this nest or hive is exceedingly
thick and hard; in point of fact, one can hardly break it open with
a spike. Here the insects lay their eggs, and white grubs are produced
wrapped in a black membrane. Apart from the membrane there is found
some wax in the honeycomb; and this a wax is much sallower in hue than
the wax in the honeycomb of the bee.

25

Ants copulate and engender grubs; and these grubs attach
themselves to nothing in particular, but grow on and on from small and
rounded shapes until they become elongated and defined in shape: and
they are engendered in spring-time.

26

The land-scorpion also lays a number of egg shaped grubs, and
broods over them. When the hatching is completed, the parent animal,
as happens with the parent spider, is ejected and put to death by
the young ones; for very often the young ones are about eleven in
number.

27

Spiders in all cases copulate in the way above mentioned, and
generate at first small grubs. And these grubs metamorphose in their
entirety, and not partially, into spiders; for, by the way, the
grubs are round-shaped at the outset. And the spider, when it lays its
eggs, broods over them, and in three days the eggs or grubs take
definite shape.

All spiders lay their eggs in a web; but some spiders lay in a
small and fine web, and others in a thick one; and some, as a rule,
lay in a round-shaped case or capsule, and some are only partially
enveloped in the web. The young grubs are not all developed at one and
the same time into young spiders; but the moment the development takes
place, the young spider makes a leap and begins to spin his web. The
juice of the grub, if you squeeze it, is the same as the juice found
in the spider when young; that is to say, it is thick and white.

The meadow spider lays its eggs into a web, one half of which is
attached to itself and the other half is free; and on this the
parent broods until the eggs are hatched. The phalangia lay their eggs
in a sort of strong basket which they have woven, and brood over it
until the eggs are hatched. The smooth spider is much less prolific
than the phalangium or hairy spider. These phalangia, when they grow
to full size, very often envelop the mother phalangium and eject and
kill her; and not seldom they kill the father-phalangium as well, if
they catch him: for, by the way, he has the habit of co-operating with
the mother in the hatching. The brood of a single phalangium is
sometimes three hundred in number. The spider attains its full
growth in about four weeks.

28

Grasshoppers (or locusts) copulate in the same way as other
insects; that is to say, with the lesser covering the larger, for
the male is smaller than the female. The females first insert the
hollow tube, which they have at their tails, in the ground, and then
lay their eggs: and the male, by the way, is not furnished with this
tube. The females lay their eggs all in a lump together, and in one
spot, so that the entire lump of eggs resembles a honeycomb. After
they have laid their eggs, the eggs assume the shape of oval grubs
that are enveloped by a sort of thin clay, like a membrane; in this
membrane-like formation they grow on to maturity. The larva is so soft
that it collapses at a touch. The larva is not placed on the surface
of the ground, but a little beneath the surface; and, when it
reaches maturity, it comes out of its clayey investiture in the
shape of a little black grasshopper; by and by, the skin integument
strips off, and it grows larger and larger.

The grasshopper lays its eggs at the close of summer, and dies
after laying them. The fact is that, at the time of laying the eggs,
grubs are engendered in the region of the mother grasshopper's neck;
and the male grasshoppers die about the same time. In spring-time they
come out of the ground; and, by the way, no grasshoppers are found
in mountainous land or in poor land, but only in flat and loamy
land, for the fact is they lay their eggs in cracks of the soil.
During the winter their eggs remain in the ground; and with the coming
of summer the last year's larva develops into the perfect grasshopper.

29

The attelabi or locusts lay their eggs and die in like manner
after laying them. Their eggs are subject to destruction by the autumn
rains, when the rains are unusually heavy; but in seasons of drought
the locusts are exceedingly numerous, from the absence of any
destructive cause, since their destruction seems then to be a matter
of accident and to depend on luck.

30

Of the cicada there are two kinds; one, small in size, the first
to come and the last to disappear; the other, large, the singing one
that comes last and first disappears. Both in the small and the
large species some are divided at the waist, to wit, the singing ones,
and some are undivided; and these latter have no song. The large and
singing cicada is by some designated the 'chirper', and the small
cicada the 'tettigonium' or cicadelle. And, by the way, such of the
tettigonia as are divided at the waist can sing just a little.

The cicada is not found where there are no trees; and this
accounts for the fact that in the district surrounding the city of
Cyrene it is not found at all in the plain country, but is found in
great numbers in the neighbourhood of the city, and especially where
olive-trees are growing: for an olive grove is not thickly shaded. And
the cicada is not found in cold places, and consequently is not
found in any grove that keeps out the sunlight.

The large and the small cicada copulate alike, belly to belly. The
male discharges sperm into the female, as is the case with insects
in general, and the female cicada has a cleft generative organ; and it
is the female into which the male discharges the sperm.

They lay their eggs in fallow lands, boring a hole with the
pointed organ they carry in the rear, as do the locusts likewise;
for the locust lays its eggs in untilled lands, and this fact may
account for their numbers in the territory adjacent to the city of
Cyrene. The cicadae also lay their eggs in the canes on which
husbandmen prop vines, perforating the canes; and also in the stalks
of the squill. This brood runs into the ground. And they are most
numerous in rainy weather. The grub, on attaining full size in the
ground, becomes a tettigometra (or nymph), and the creature is
sweetest to the taste at this stage before the husk is broken. When
the summer solstice comes, the creature issues from the husk at
night-time, and in a moment, as the husk breaks, the larva becomes the
perfect cicada. creature, also, at once turns black in colour and
harder and larger, and takes to singing. In both species, the larger
and the smaller, it is the male that sings, and the female that is
unvocal. At first, the males are the sweeter eating; but, after
copulation, the females, as they are full then of white eggs.

If you make a sudden noise as they are flying overhead they let
drop something like water. Country people, in regard to this, say that
they are voiding urine, ie. that they have an excrement, and that they
feed upon dew.

If you present your finger to a cicada and bend back the tip
of it and then extend it again, it will endure the presentation more
quietly than if you were to keep your finger outstretched
altogether; and it will set to climbing your finger: for the
creature is so weak-sighted that it will take to climbing your
finger as though that were a moving leaf.

31

Of insects that are not carnivorous but that live on the juices of
living flesh, such as lice and fleas and bugs, all, without exception,
generate what are called 'nits', and these nits generate nothing.

Of these insects the flea is generated out of the slightest amount
of putrefying matter; for wherever there is any dry excrement, a
flea is sure to be found. Bugs are generated from the moisture of
living animals, as it dries up outside their bodies.