A she-ass has been known to
conceive
when a year old, and the foal to be reared.
Aristotle copy
As a rule, cartilaginous fish are less prolific than other fish owing to their being viviparous; and their young by reason of their size have a better chance of escaping destruction.
The so-called needle-fish (or pipe-fish) is late in spawning, and the greater portion of them are burst asunder by the eggs before spawning; and the eggs are not so many in number as large in size. The young fish cluster round the parent like so many young spiders, for the fish spawns on to herself; and, if any one touch the young, they swim away. The atherine spawns by rubbing its belly against the sand.
Tunny fish also burst asunder by reason of their fat. They live for two years; and the fishermen infer this age from the circumstance that once when there was a failure of the young tunny fish for a year there was a failure of the full-grown tunny the next summer. They are of opinion that the tunny is a fish a year older than the pelamyd. The tunny and the mackerel pair about the close of the month of Elaphebolion, and spawn about the commencement of the month of Hecatombaeon; they deposit their spawn in a sort of bag. The growth of the young tunny is rapid. After the females have spawned in the Euxine, there comes from the egg what some call scordylae, but what the Byzantines nickname the 'auxids' or 'growers', from their growing to a considerable size in a few days; these fish go out of the Pontus in autumn along with the young tunnies, and enter Pontus in the spring as pelamyds. Fishes as a rule take on growth with rapidity, but this is peculiarly the case with all species of fish found in the Pontus; the growth, for instance, of the amia-tunny is quite visible from day to day.
To resume, we must bear in mind that the same fish in the same localities have not the same season for pairing, for conception, for parturition, or for favouring weather. The coracine, for instance, in some places spawns about wheat-harvest. The statements here given pretend only to give the results of general observation.
The conger also spawns, but the fact is not equally obvious in all localities, nor is the spawn plainly visible owing to the fat of the fish; for the spawn is lanky in shape as it is with serpents. However, if it be put on the fire it shows its nature; for the fat evaporates and melts, while the eggs dance about and explode with a crack. Further, if you touch the substances and rub them with your fingers, the fat feels smooth and the egg rough. Some congers are provided with fat but not with any spawn, others are unprovided with fat but have egg-spawn as here described.
18
We have, then, treated pretty fully of the animals that fly in the air or swim in the water, and of such of those that walk on dry land as are oviparous, to wit of their pairing, conception, and the like phenomena; it now remains to treat of the same phenomena in connexion with viviparous land animals and with man.
The statements made in regard to the pairing of the sexes apply partly to the particular kinds of animal and partly to all in general. It is common to all animals to be most excited by the desire of one sex for the other and by the pleasure derived from copulation. The female is most cross-tempered just after parturition, the male during the time of pairing; for instance, stallions at this period bite one another, throw their riders, and chase them. Wild boars, though usually enfeebled at this time as the result of copulation, are now unusually fierce, and fight with one another in an extraordinary way, clothing themselves with defensive armour, or in other words deliberately thickening their hide by rubbing against trees or by coating themselves repeatedly all over with mud and then drying themselves in the sun. They drive one another away from the swine pastures, and fight with such fury that very often both combatants succumb. The case is similar with bulls, rams, and he-goats; for, though at ordinary times they herd together, at breeding time they hold aloof from and quarrel with one another. The male camel also is cross-tempered at pairing time if either a man or a camel comes near him; as for a horse, a camel is ready to fight him at any time. It is the same with wild animals. The bear, the wolf, and the lion are all at this time ferocious towards such as come in their way, but the males of these animals are less given to fight with one another from the fact that they are at no time gregarious. The she-bear is fierce after cubbing, and the bitch after pupping.
Male elephants get savage about pairing time, and for this reason it is stated that men who have charge of elephants in India never allow the males to have intercourse with the females; on the ground that the males go wild at this time and turn topsy-turvy the dwellings of their keepers, lightly constructed as they are, and commit all kinds of havoc. They also state that abundancy of food has a tendency to tame the males. They further introduce other elephants amongst the wild ones, and punish and break them in by setting on the new-comers to chastise the others.
Animals that pair frequently and not at a single specific season, as for instance animals domesticated by man, such as swine and dogs, are found to indulge in such freaks to a lesser degree owing to the frequency of their sexual intercourse.
Of female animals the mare is the most sexually wanton, and next in order comes the cow. In fact, the mare is said to go a-horsing; and the term derived from the habits of this one animal serves as a term of abuse applicable to such females of the human species as are unbridled in the way of sexual appetite. This is the common phenomenon as observed in the sow when she is said to go a-boaring. The mare is said also about this time to get wind-impregnated if not impregnated by the stallion, and for this reason in Crete they never remove the stallion from the mares; for when the mare gets into this condition she runs away from all other horses. The mares under these circumstances fly invariably either northwards or southwards, and never towards either east or west. When this complaint is on them they allow no one to approach, until either they are exhausted with fatigue or have reached the sea. Under either of these circumstances they discharge a certain substance 'hippomanes', the title given to a growth on a new-born foal; this resembles the sow-virus, and is in great request amongst women who deal in drugs and potions. About horsing time the mares huddle closer together, are continually switching their tails, their neigh is abnormal in sound, and from the sexual organ there flows a liquid resembling genital sperm, but much thinner than the sperm of the male. It is this substance that some call hippomanes, instead of the growth found on the foal; they say it is extremely difficult to get as it oozes out only in small drops at a time. Mares also, when in heat, discharge urine frequently, and frisk with one another. Such are the phenomena connected with the horse.
Cows go a-bulling; and so completely are they under the influence of the sexual excitement that the herdsmen have no control over them and cannot catch hold of them in the fields. Mares and kine alike, when in heat, indicate the fact by the upraising of their genital organs, and by continually voiding urine. Further, kine mount the bulls, follow them about; and keep standing beside them. The younger females both with horses and oxen are the first to get in heat; and their sexual appetites are all the keener if the weather warm and their bodily condition be healthy. Mares, when clipt of their coat, have the sexual feeling checked, and assume a downcast drooping appearance. The stallion recognizes by the scent the mares that form his company, even though they have been together only a few days before breeding time: if they get mixed up with other mares, the stallion bites and drives away the interlopers. He feeds apart, accompanied by his own troop of mares. Each stallion has assigned to him about thirty mares or even somewhat more; when a strange stallion approaches, he huddles his mares into a close ring, runs round them, then advances to the encounter of the newcomer; if one of the mares make a movement, he bites her and drives her back. The bull in breeding time begins to graze with the cows, and fights with other bulls (having hitherto grazed with them), which is termed by graziers 'herd-spurning'. Often in Epirus a bull disappears for three months together. In a general way one may state that of male animals either none or few herd with their respective females before breeding time; but they keep separate after reaching maturity, and the two sexes feed apart. Sows, when they are moved by sexual desire, or are, as it is called, a-boaring, will attack even human beings.
With bitches the same sexual condition is termed 'getting into heat'. The sexual organ rises at this time, and there is a moisture about the parts. Mares drip with a white liquid at this season.
Female animals are subject to menstrual discharges, but never in such-abundance as is the female of the human species. With ewes and she-goats there are signs of menstruation in breeding time, just before the for submitting to the male; after copulation also the signs are manifest, and then cease for an interval until the period of parturition arrives; the process then supervenes, and it is by this supervention that the shepherd knows that such and such an ewe is about to bring forth. After parturition comes copious menstruation, not at first much tinged with blood, but deeply dyed with it by and by. With the cow, the she ass, and the mare, the discharge is more copious actually, owing to their greater bulk, but proportionally to the greater bulk it is far less copious. The cow, for instance, when in heat, exhibits a small discharge to the extent of a quarter of a pint of liquid or a little less; and the time when this discharge takes place is the best time for her to be covered by the bull. Of all quadrupeds the mare is the most easily delivered of its young, exhibits the least amount of discharge after parturition, and emits the least amount of blood; that is to say, of all animals in proportion to size. With kine and mares menstruation usually manifests itself at intervals of two, four, and six months; but, unless one be constantly attending to and thoroughly acquainted with such animals, it is difficult to verify the circumstance, and the result is that many people are under the belief that the process never takes place with these animals at all.
With mules menstruation never takes place, but the urine of the female is thicker than the urine of the male. As a general rule the discharge from the bladder in the case of quadrupeds is thicker than it is in the human species, and this discharge with ewes and she-goats is thicker than with rams and he-goats; but the urine of the jackass is thicker than the urine of the she-ass, and the urine of the bull is more pungent than the urine of the cow. After parturition the urine of all quadrupeds becomes thicker, especially with such animals as exhibit comparatively slight discharges. At breeding time the milk become purulent, but after parturition it becomes wholesome. During pregnancy ewes and she-goats get fatter and eat more; as is also the case with cows, and, indeed, with the females of all quadrupeds.
In general the sexual appetites of animals are keenest in spring-time; the time of pairing, however, is not the same for all, but is adapted so as to ensure the rearing of the young at a convenient season.
Domesticated swine carry their young for four months, and bring forth a litter of twenty at the utmost; and, by the way, if the litter be exceedingly numerous they cannot rear all the young. As the sow grows old she continues to bear, but grows indifferent to the boar; she conceives after a single copulation, but they have to put the boar to her repeatedly owing to her dropping after intercourse what is called the sow-virus. This incident befalls all sows, but some of them discharge the genital sperm as well. During conception any one of the litter that gets injured or dwarfed is called an afterpig or scut: such injury may occur at any part of the womb. After littering the mother offers the foremost teat to the first-born. When the sow is in heat, she must not at once be put to the boar, but only after she lets her lugs drop, for otherwise she is apt to get into heat again; if she be put to the boar when in full condition of heat, one copulation, as has been said, is sufficient. It is as well to supply the boar at the period of copulation with barley, and the sow at the time of parturition with boiled barley. Some swine give fine litters only at the beginning, with others the litters improve as the mothers grow in age and size. It is said that a sow, if she have one of her eyes knocked out, is almost sure to die soon afterwards. Swine for the most part live for fifteen years, but some fall little short of the twenty.
19
Ewes conceive after three or four copulations with the ram. If rain falls after intercourse, the ram impregnates the ewe again; and it is the same with the she-goat. The ewe bears usually two lambs, sometimes three or four. Both ewe and she-goat carry their young for five months; consequently wherever a district is sunny and the animals are used to comfort and well fed, they bear twice in the year. The goat lives for eight years and the sheep for ten, but in most cases not so long; the bell-wether, however, lives to fifteen years. In every flock they train one of the rams for bell-wether. When he is called on by name by the shepherd, he takes the lead of the flock: and to this duty the creature is trained from its earliest years. Sheep in Ethiopia live for twelve or thirteen years, goats for ten or eleven. In the case of the sheep and the goat the two sexes have intercourse all their lives long.
Twins with sheep and goats may be due to richness of pasturage, or to the fact that either the ram or the he-goat is a twin-begetter or that the ewe or the she-goat is a twin-bearer. Of these animals some give birth to males and others to females; and the difference in this respect depends on the waters they drink and also on the sires. And if they submit to the male when north winds are blowing, they are apt to bear males; if when south winds are blowing, females. Such as bear females may get to bear males, due regard being paid to their looking northwards when put to the male. Ewes accustomed to be put to the ram early will refuse him if he attempt to mount them late. Lambs are born white and black according as white or black veins are under the ram's tongue; the lambs are white if the veins are white, and black if the veins are black, and white and black if the veins are white and black; and red if the veins are red. The females that drink salted waters are the first to take the male; the water should be salted before and after parturition, and again in the springtime. With goats the shepherds appoint no bell-wether, as the animal is not capable of repose but frisky and apt to ramble. If at the appointed season the elders of the flock are eager for intercourse, the shepherds say that it bodes well for the flock; if the younger ones, that the flock is going to be bad.
20
Of dogs there are several breeds. Of these the Laconian hound of either sex is fit for breeding purposes when eight months old: at about the same age some dogs lift the leg when voiding urine. The bitch conceives with one lining; this is clearly seen in the case where a dog contrives to line a bitch by stealth, as they impregnate after mounting only once. The Laconian bitch carries her young the sixth part of a year or sixty days: or more by one, two, or three, or less by one; the pups are blind for twelve days after birth. After pupping, the bitch gets in heat again in six months, but not before. Some bitches carry their young for the fifth part of the year or for seventy-two days; and their pups are blind for fourteen days. Other bitches carry their young for a quarter of a year or for three whole months; and the whelps of these are blind for seventeen days. The bitch appears go in heat for the same length of time. Menstruation continues for seven days, and a swelling of the genital organ occurs simultaneously; it is not during this period that the bitch is disposed to submit to the dog, but in the seven days that follow. The bitch as a rule goes in heat for fourteen days, but occasionally for sixteen. The birth-discharge occurs simultaneously with the delivery of the whelps, and the substance of it is thick and mucous. (The falling-off in bulk on the part of the mother is not so great as might have been inferred from the size of her frame. ) The bitch is usually supplied with milk five days before parturition; some seven days previously, some four; and the milk is serviceable immediately after birth. The Laconian bitch is supplied with milk thirty days after lining. The milk at first is thickish, but gets thinner by degrees; with the bitch the milk is thicker than with the female of any other animal excepting the sow and the hare. When the bitch arrives at full growth an indication is given of her capacity for the male; that is to say, just as occurs in the female of the human species, a swelling takes place in the teats of the breasts, and the breasts take on gristle. This incident, however, it is difficult for any but an expert to detect, as the part that gives the indication is inconsiderable. The preceding statements relate to the female, and not one of them to the male. The male as a rule lifts his leg to void urine when six months old; some at a later period, when eight months old, some before they reach six months. In a general way one may put it that they do so when they are out of puppyhood. The bitch squats down when she voids urine; it is a rare exception that she lifts the leg to do so. The bitch bears twelve pups at the most, but usually five or six; occasionally a bitch will bear one only. The bitch of the Laconian breed generally bears eight. The two sexes have intercourse with each other at all periods of life. A very remarkable phenomenon is observed in the case of the Laconian hound: in other words, he is found to be more vigorous in commerce with the female after being hard-worked than when allowed to live idle.
The dog of the Laconian breed lives ten years, and the bitch twelve. The bitch of other breeds usually lives for fourteen or fifteen years, but some live to twenty; and for this reason certain critics consider that Homer did well in representing the dog of Ulysses as having died in his twentieth year. With the Laconian hound, owing to the hardships to which the male is put, he is less long-lived than the female; with other breeds the distinction as to longevity is not very apparent, though as a general rule the male is the longer-lived.
The dog sheds no teeth except the so-called 'canines'; these a dog of either sex sheds when four months old. As they shed these only, many people are in doubt as to the fact, and some people, owing to their shedding but two and its being hard to hit upon the time when they do so, fancy that the animal sheds no teeth at all; others, after observing the shedding of two, come to the conclusion that the creature sheds the rest in due turn. Men discern the age of a dog by inspection of its teeth; with young dogs the teeth are white and sharp pointed, with old dogs black and blunted.
21
The bull impregnates the cow at a single mount, and mounts with such vigour as to weigh down the cow; if his effort be unsuccessful, the cow must be allowed an interval of twenty days before being again submitted. Bulls of mature age decline to mount the same cow several times on one day, except, by the way, at considerable intervals. Young bulls by reason of their vigour are enabled to mount the same cow several times in one day, and a good many cows besides. The bull is the least salacious of male animals. . . . The victor among the bulls is the one that mounts the females; when he gets exhausted by his amorous efforts, his beaten antagonist sets on him and very often gets the better of the conflict. The bull and the cow are about a year old when it is possible for them to have commerce with chance of offspring: as a rule, however, they are about twenty months old, but it is universally allowed that they are capable in this respect at the age of two years. The cow goes with calf for nine months, and she calves in the tenth month; some maintain that they go in calf for ten months, to the very day. A calf delivered before the times here specified is an abortion and never lives, however little premature its birth may have been, as its hooves are weak and imperfect. The cow as a rule bears but one calf, very seldom two; she submits to the bull and bears as long as she lives.
Cows live for about fifteen years, and the bulls too, if they have been castrated; but some live for twenty years or even more, if their bodily constitutions be sound. The herdsmen tame the castrated bulls, and give them an office in the herd analogous to the office of the bell-wether in a flock; and these bulls live to an exceptionally advanced age, owing to their exemption from hardship and to their browsing on pasture of good quality. The bull is in fullest vigour when five years old, which leads the critics to commend Homer for applying to the bull the epithets of 'five-year-old', or 'of nine seasons', which epithets are alike in meaning. The ox sheds his teeth at the age of two years, not all together but just as the horse sheds his. When the animal suffers from podagra it does not shed the hoof, but is subject to a painful swelling in the feet. The milk of the cow is serviceable after parturition, and before parturition there is no milk at all. The milk that first presents itself becomes as hard as stone when it clots; this result ensues unless it be previously diluted with water. Oxen younger than a year old do not copulate unless under circumstances of an unnatural and portentous kind: instances have been recorded of copulation in both sexes at the age of four months. Kine in general begin to submit to the male about the month of Thargelion or of Scirophorion; some, however, are capable of conception right on to the autumn. When kine in large numbers receive the bull and conceive, it is looked upon as prognostic of rain and stormy weather. Kine herd together like mares, but in lesser degree.
22
In the case of horses, the stallion and the mare are first fitted for breeding purposes when two years old. Instances, however, of such early maturity are rare, and their young are exceptionally small and weak; the ordinary age for sexual maturity is three years, and from that age to twenty the two sexes go on improving in the quality of their offspring. The mare carries her foal for eleven months, and casts it in the twelfth. It is not a fixed number of days that the stallion takes to impregnate the mare; it may be one, two, three, or more. An ass in covering will impregnate more expeditiously than a stallion. The act of intercourse with horses is not laborious as it is with oxen. In both sexes the horse is the most salacious of animals next after the human species. The breeding faculties of the younger horses may be stimulated beyond their years if they be supplied with good feeding in abundance. The mare as a rule bears only one foal; occasionally she has two, but never more. A mare has been known to cast two mules; but such a circumstance was regarded as unnatural and portentous.
The horse then is first fitted for breeding purposes at the age of two and a half years, but achieves full sexual maturity when it has ceased to shed teeth, except it be naturally infertile; it must be added, however, that some horses have been known to impregnate the mare while the teeth were in process of shedding.
The horse has forty teeth. It sheds its first set of four, two from the upper jaw and two from the lower, when two and a half years old. After a year's interval, it sheds another set of four in like manner, and another set of four after yet another year's interval; after arriving at the age of four years and six months it sheds no more. An instance has occurred where a horse shed all his teeth at once, and another instance of a horse shedding all his teeth with his last set of four; but such instances are very rare. It consequently happens that a horse when four and a half years old is in excellent condition for breeding purposes.
The older horses, whether of the male or female, are the more generatively productive. Horses will cover mares from which they have been foaled and mares which they have begotten; and, indeed, a troop of horses is only considered perfect when such promiscuity of intercourse occurs. Scythians use pregnant mares for riding when the embryo has turned rather soon in the womb, and they assert that thereby the mothers have all the easier delivery. Quadrupeds as a rule lie down for parturition, and in consequence the young of them all come out of the womb sideways. The mare, however, when the time for parturition arrives, stands erect and in that posture casts its foal.
The horse in general lives for eighteen or twenty years; some horses live for twenty-five or even thirty, and if a horse be treated with extreme care, it may last on to the age of fifty years; a horse, however, when it reaches thirty years is regarded as exceptionally old. The mare lives usually for twenty-five years, though instances have occurred of their attaining the age of forty. The male is less long-lived than the female by reason of the sexual service he is called on to render; and horses that are reared in a private stable live longer than such as are reared in troops. The mare attains her full length and height at five years old, the stallion at six; in another six years the animal reaches its full bulk, and goes on improving until it is twenty years old. The female, then, reaches maturity more rapidly than the male, but in the womb the case is reversed, just as is observed in regard to the sexes of the human species; and the same phenomenon is observed in the case of all animals that bear several young.
The mare is said to suckle a mule-foal for six months, but not to allow its approach for any longer on account of the pain it is put to by the hard tugging of the young; an ordinary foal it allows to suck for a longer period.
Horse and mule are at their best after the shedding of the teeth. After they have shed them all, it is not easy to distinguish their age; hence they are said to carry their mark before the shedding, but not after. However, even after the shedding their age is pretty well recognized by the aid of the canines; for in the case of horses much ridden these teeth are worn away by attrition caused by the insertion of the bit; in the case of horses not ridden the teeth are large and detached, and in young horses they are sharp and small.
The male of the horse will breed at all seasons and during its whole life; the mare can take the horse all its life long, but is not thus ready to pair at all seasons unless it be held in check by a halter or some other compulsion be brought to bear. There is no fixed time at which intercourse of the two sexes cannot take place; and accordingly intercourse may chance to take place at a time that may render difficult the rearing of the future progeny. In a stable in Opus there was a stallion that used to serve mares when forty years old: his fore legs had to be lifted up for the operation.
Mares first take the horse in the spring-time. After a mare has foaled she does not get impregnated at once again, but only after a considerable interval; in fact, the foals will be all the better if the interval extend over four or five years. It is, at all events, absolutely necessary to allow an interval of one year, and for that period to let her lie fallow. A mare, then, breeds at intervals; a she-ass breeds on and on without intermission. Of mares some are absolutely sterile, others are capable of conception but incapable of bringing the foal to full term; it is said to be an indication of this condition in a mare, that her foal if dissected is found to have other kidney-shaped substances round about its kidneys, presenting the appearance of having four kidneys.
After parturition the mare at once swallows the after-birth, and bites off the growth, called the 'hippomanes', that is found on the forehead of the foal. This growth is somewhat smaller than a dried fig; and in shape is broad and round, and in colour black. If any bystander gets possession of it before the mare, and the mare gets a smell of it, she goes wild and frantic at the smell. And it is for this reason that venders of drugs and simples hold the substance in high request and include it among their stores.
If an ass cover a mare after the mare has been covered by a horse, the ass will destroy the previously formed embryo.
(Horse-trainers do not appoint a horse as leader to a troop, as herdsmen appoint a bull as leader to a herd, and for this reason that the horse is not steady but quick-tempered and skittish. )
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The ass of both sexes is capable of breeding, and sheds its first teeth at the age of two and a half years; it sheds its second teeth within six months, its third within another six months, and the fourth after the like interval. These fourth teeth are termed the gnomons or age-indicators.
A she-ass has been known to conceive when a year old, and the foal to be reared. After intercourse with the male it will discharge the genital sperm unless it be hindered, and for this reason it is usually beaten after such intercourse and chased about. It casts its young in the twelfth month. It usually bears but one foal, and that is its natural number, occasionally however it bears twins. The ass if it cover a mare destroys, as has been said, the embryo previously begotten by the horse; but, after the mare has been covered by the ass, the horse supervening will not spoil the embryo. The she-ass has milk in the tenth month of pregnancy. Seven days after casting a foal the she-ass submits to the male, and is almost sure to conceive if put to the male on this particular day; the same result, however, is quite possible later on. The she-ass will refuse to cast her foal with any one looking on or in the daylight and just before foaling she has to be led away into a dark place. If the she-ass has had young before the shedding of the index-teeth, she will bear all her life through; but if not, then she will neither conceive nor bear for the rest of her days. The ass lives for more than thirty years, and the she-ass lives longer than the male.
When there is a cross between a horse and a she-ass or a jackass and a mare, there is much greater chance of a miscarriage than where the commerce is normal. The period for gestation in the case of a cross depends on the male, and is just what it would have been if the male had had commerce with a female of his own kind. In regard to size, looks, and vigour, the foal is more apt to resemble the mother than the sire. If such hybrid connexions be continued without intermittence, the female will soon go sterile; and for this reason trainers always allow of intervals between breeding times. A mare will not take the ass, nor a she ass the horse, unless the ass or she-ass shall have been suckled by a mare; and for this reason trainers put foals of the she-ass under mares, which foals are technically spoken of as 'mare-suckled'. These asses, thus reared, mount the mares in the open pastures, mastering them by force as the stallions do.
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A mule is fitted for commerce with the female after the first shedding of its teeth, and at the age of seven will impregnate effectually; and where connexion has taken place with a mare, a 'hinny' has been known to be produced. After the seventh year it has no further intercourse with the female. A female mule has been known to be impregnated, but without the impregnation being followed up by parturition. In Syrophoenicia she-mules submit to the mule and bear young; but the breed, though it resembles the ordinary one, is different and specific. The hinny or stunted mule is foaled by a mare when she has gone sick during gestation, and corresponds to the dwarf in the human species and to the after-pig or scut in swine; and as is the case with dwarfs, the sexual organ of the hinny is abnormally large.
The mule lives for a number of years. There are on record cases of mules living to the age of eighty, as did one in Athens at the time of the building of the temple; this mule on account of its age was let go free, but continued to assist in dragging burdens, and would go side by side with the other draught-beasts and stimulate them to their work; and in consequence a public decree was passed forbidding any baker driving the creature away from his bread-tray. The she-mule grows old more slowly than the mule. Some assert that the she-mule menstruates by the act of voiding her urine, and that the mule owes the prematurity of his decay to his habit of smelling at the urine. So much for the modes of generation in connexion with these animals.
25
Breeders and trainers can distinguish between young and old quadrupeds. If, when drawn back from the jaw, the skin at once goes back to its place, the animal is young; if it remains long wrinkled up, the animal is old.
26
The camel carries its young for ten months, and bears but one at a time and never more; the young camel is removed from the mother when a year old. The animal lives for a long period, more than fifty years. It bears in spring-time, and gives milk until the time of the next conception. Its flesh and milk are exceptionally palatable. The milk is drunk mixed with water in the proportion of either two to one or three to one.
27
The elephant of either sex is fitted for breeding before reaching the age of twenty. The female carries her young, according to some accounts, for two and a half years; according to others, for three years; and the discrepancy in the assigned periods is due to the fact that there are never human eyewitnesses to the commerce between the sexes. The female settles down on its rear to cast its young, and obviously suffers greatly during the process. The young one, immediately after birth, sucks the mother, not with its trunk but with the mouth; and can walk about and see distinctly the moment it is born.
28
The wild sow submits to the boar at the beginning of winter, and in the spring-time retreats for parturition to a lair in some district inaccessible to intrusion, hemmed in with sheer cliffs and chasms and overshadowed by trees. The boar usually remains by the sow for thirty days. The number of the litter and the period gestation is the same as in the case of the domesticated congener. The sound of the grunt also is similar; only that the sow grunts continually, and the boar but seldom. Of the wild boars such as are castrated grow to the largest size and become fiercest: to which circumstance Homer alludes when he says:-
'He reared against him a wild castrated boar: it was not like a food-devouring brute, but like a forest-clad promontory. '
Wild boars become castrated owing to an itch befalling them in early life in the region of the testicles, and the castration is superinduced by their rubbing themselves against the trunks of trees.
29
The hind, as has been stated, submits to the stag as a rule only under compulsion, as she is unable to endure the male often owing to the rigidity of the penis. However, they do occasionally submit to the stag as the ewe submits ram; and when they are in heat the hinds avoid one another. The stag is not constant to one particular hind, but after a while quits one and mates with others. The breeding time is after the rising of Arcturus, during the months of Boedromion and Maimacterion. The period of gestation lasts for eight months. Conception comes on a few days after intercourse; and a number of hinds can be impregnated by a single male. The hind, as a rule, bears but one fawn, although instances have been known of her casting two. Out of dread of wild beasts she casts her young by the side of the high-road. The young fawn grows with rapidity. Menstruation occurs at no other time with the hind; it takes place only after parturition, and the substance is phlegm-like.
The hind leads the fawn to her lair; this is her place of refuge, a cave with a single inlet, inside which she shelters herself against attack.
Fabulous stories are told concerning the longevity of the animal, but the stories have never been verified, and the brevity of the period of gestation and the rapidity of growth in the fawn would not lead one to attribute extreme longevity to this creature.
In the mountain called Elaphoeis or Deer Mountain, which is in Arginussa in Asia Minor-the place, by the way, where Alcibiades was assassinated-all the hinds have the ear split, so that, if they stray to a distance, they can be recognized by this mark; and the embryo actually has the mark while yet in the womb of the mother.
The hind has four teats like the cow. After the hinds have become pregnant, the males all segregate one by one, and in consequence of the violence of their sexual passions they keep each one to himself, dig a hole in the ground, and bellow from time to time; in all these particulars they resemble the goat, and their foreheads from getting wetted become black, as is also the case with the goat. In this way they pass the time until the rain falls, after which time they turn to pasture. The animal acts in this way owing to its sexual wantonness and also to its obesity; for in summer-time it becomes so exceptionally fat as to be unable to run: in fact at this period they can be overtaken by the hunters that pursue them on foot in the second or third run; and, by the way, in consequence of the heat of the weather and their getting out of breath they always make for water in their runs. In the rutting season, the flesh of the deer is unsavoury and rank, like the flesh of the he-goat. In winter-time the deer becomes thin and weak, but towards the approach of the spring he is at his best for running. When on the run the deer keeps pausing from time to time, and waits until his pursuer draws upon him, whereupon he starts off again. This habit appears due to some internal pain: at all events, the gut is so slender and weak that, if you strike the animal ever so softly, it is apt to break asunder, though the hide of the animal remains sound and uninjured.
30
Bears, as has been previously stated, do not copulate with the male mounting the back of the female, but with the female lying down under the male. The she-bear goes with young for thirty days. She brings forth sometimes one cub, sometimes two cubs, and at most five. Of all animals the newly born cub of the she bear is the smallest in proportion to the size of the mother; that is to say, it is larger than a mouse but smaller than a weasel. It is also smooth and blind, and its legs and most of its organs are as yet inarticulate. Pairing takes Place in the month of Elaphebolion, and parturition about the time for retiring into winter quarters; about this time the bear and the she-bear are at the fattest. After the she-bear has reared her young, she comes out of her winter lair in the third month, when it is already spring. The female porcupine, by the way, hibernates and goes with young the same number of days as the she-bear, and in all respects as to parturition resembles this animal. When a she-bear is with young, it is a very hard task to catch her.
31
It has already been stated that the lion and lioness copulate rearwards, and that these animals are opisthuretic. They do not copulate nor bring forth at all seasons indiscriminately, but once in the year only. The lioness brings forth in the spring, generally two cubs at a time, and six at the very most; but sometimes only one. The story about the lioness discharging her womb in the act of parturition is a pure fable, and was merely invented to account for the scarcity of the animal; for the animal is, as is well known, a rare animal, and is not found in many countries. In fact, in the whole of Europe it is only found in the strip between the rivers Achelous and Nessus. The cubs of the lioness when newly born are exceedingly small, and can scarcely walk when two months old. The Syrian lion bears cubs five times: five cubs at the first litter, then four, then three, then two, and lastly one; after this the lioness ceases to bear for the rest of her days. The lioness has no mane, but this appendage is peculiar to the lion. The lion sheds only the four so-called canines, two in the upper jaw and two in the lower; and it sheds them when it is six months old.
32
The hyena in colour resembles the wolf, but is more shaggy, and is furnished with a mane running all along the spine. What is recounted concerning its genital organs, to the effect that every hyena is furnished with the organ both of the male and the female, is untrue. The fact is that the sexual organ of the male hyena resembles the same organ in the wolf and in the dog; the part resembling the female genital organ lies underneath the tail, and does to some extent resemble the female organ, but it is unprovided with duct or passage, and the passage for the residuum comes underneath it. The female hyena has the part that resembles the organ of the male, and, as in the case of the male, has it underneath her tail, unprovided with duct or passage; and after it the passage for the residuum, and underneath this the true female genital organ. The female hyena has a womb, like all other female animals of the same kind. It is an exceedingly rare circumstance to meet with a female hyena. At least a hunter said that out of eleven hyenas he had caught, only one was a female.
33
Hares copulate in a rearward posture, as has been stated, for the animal is opisthuretic. They breed and bear at all seasons, superfoetate during pregnancy, and bear young every month. They do not give birth to their young ones all together at one time, but bring them forth at intervals over as many days as the circumstances of each case may require. The female is supplied with milk before parturition; and after bearing submits immediately to the male, and is capable of conception while suckling her young. The milk in consistency resembles sow's milk. The young are born blind, as is the case with the greater part Of the fissipeds or toed animals.
34
The fox mounts the vixen in copulation, and the vixen bears young like the she-bear; in fact, her young ones are even more inarticulately formed. Before parturition she retires to sequestered places, so that it is a great rarity for a vixen to be caught while pregnant. After parturition she warms her young and gets them into shape by licking them. She bears four at most at a birth.
35
The wolf resembles the dog in regard to the time of conception and parturition, the number of the litter, and the blindness of the newborn young. The sexes couple at one special period, and the female brings forth at the beginning of the summer. There is an account given of the parturition of the she-wolf that borders on the fabulous, to the effect that she confines her lying-in to within twelve particular days of the year. And they give the reason for this in the form of a myth, viz. that when they transported Leto in so many days from the land of the Hyperboreans to the island of Delos, she assumed the form of a she-wolf to escape the anger of Here. Whether the account be correct or not has not yet been verified; I give it merely as it is currently told. There is no more of truth in the current statement that the she-wolf bears once and only once in her lifetime.
The cat and the ichneumon bear as many young as the dog, and live on the same food; they live about six years. The cubs of the panther are born blind like those of the wolf, and the female bears four at the most at one birth. The particulars of conception are the same for the thos, or civet, as for the dog; the cubs of the animal are born blind, and the female bears two, or three, or four at a birth. It is long in the body and low in stature; but not withstanding the shortness of its legs it is exceptionally fleet of foot, owing to the suppleness of its frame and its capacity for leaping.
36
There is found in Syria a so-called mule. It is not the same as the cross between the horse and ass, but resembles it just as a wild ass resembles the domesticated congener, and derives its name from the resemblance. Like the wild ass, this wild mule is remarkable for its speed. The animals of this species interbreed with one another; and a proof of this statement may be gathered from the fact that a certain number of them were brought into Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces, the father of Pharnabazus, and the animal is there still. The number originally introduced was nine, and there are three there at the present day.
37
The phenomena of generation in regard to the mouse are the most astonishing both for the number of the young and for the rapidity of recurrence in the births. On one occasion a she-mouse in a state of pregnancy was shut up by accident in a jar containing millet-seed, and after a little while the lid of the jar was removed and upwards of one hundred and twenty mice were found inside it.
The rate of propagation of field mice in country places, and the destruction that they cause, are beyond all telling. In many places their number is so incalculable that but very little of the corn-crop is left to the farmer; and so rapid is their mode of proceeding that sometimes a small farmer will one day observe that it is time for reaping, and on the following morning, when he takes his reapers afield, he finds his entire crop devoured. Their disappearance is unaccountable: in a few days not a mouse will there be to be seen. And yet in the time before these few days men fail to keep down their numbers by fumigating and unearthing them, or by regularly hunting them and turning in swine upon them; for pigs, by the way, turn up the mouse-holes by rooting with their snouts. Foxes also hunt them, and the wild ferrets in particular destroy them, but they make no way against the prolific qualities of the animal and the rapidity of its breeding. When they are super-abundant, nothing succeeds in thinning them down except the rain; but after heavy rains they disappear rapidly.
In a certain district of Persia when a female mouse is dissected the female embryos appear to be pregnant. Some people assert, and positively assert, that a female mouse by licking salt can become pregnant without the intervention of the male.
Mice in Egypt are covered with bristles like the hedgehog. There is also a different breed of mice that walk on their two hind-legs; their front legs are small and their hind-legs long; the breed is exceedingly numerous. There are many other breeds of mice than are here referred to.
Book VII
1
As to Man's growth, first within his mother's womb and afterward to old age, the course of nature, in so far as man is specially concerned, is after the following manner. And, by the way, the difference of male and female and of their respective organs has been dealt with heretofore. When twice seven years old, in the most of cases, the male begins to engender seed; and at the same time hair appears upon the pubes, in like manner, so Alcmaeon of Croton remarks, as plants first blossom and then seed. About the same time, the voice begins to alter, getting harsher and more uneven, neither shrill as formerly nor deep as afterward, nor yet of any even tone, but like an instrument whose strings are frayed and out of tune; and it is called, by way of by-word, the bleat of the billy-goat. Now this breaking of the voice is the more apparent in those who are making trial of their sexual powers; for in those who are prone to lustfulness the voice turns into the voice of a man, but not so in the continent. For if a lad strive diligently to hinder his voice from breaking, as some do of those who devote themselves to music, the voice lasts a long while unbroken and may even persist with little change. And the breasts swell and likewise the private parts, altering in size and shape. (And by the way, at this time of life those who try by friction to provoke emission of seed are apt to experience pain as well as voluptuous sensations. ) At the same age in the female, the breasts swell and the so-called catamenia commence to flow; and this fluid resembles fresh blood. There is another discharge, a white one, by the way, which occurs in girls even at a very early age, more especially if their diet be largely of a fluid nature; and this malady causes arrest of growth and loss of flesh. In the majority of cases the catamenia are noticed by the time the breasts have grown to the height of two fingers' breadth. In girls, too, about this time the voice changes to a deeper note; for while in general the woman's voice is higher than the man's, so also the voices of girls are pitched in a higher key than the elder women's, just as the boy's are higher than the men's; and the girls' voices are shriller than the boys', and a maid's flute is tuned sharper than a lad's.
Girls of this age have much need of surveillance. For then in particular they feel a natural impulse to make usage of the sexual faculties that are developing in them; so that unless they guard against any further impulse beyond that inevitable one which their bodily development of itself supplies, even in the case of those who abstain altogether from passionate indulgence, they contract habits which are apt to continue into later life. For girls who give way to wantonness grow more and more wanton; and the same is true of boys, unless they be safeguarded from one temptation and another; for the passages become dilated and set up a local flux or running, and besides this the recollection of pleasure associated with former indulgence creates a longing for its repetition.
Some men are congenitally impotent owing to structural defect; and in like manner women also may suffer from congenital incapacity. Both men and women are liable to constitutional change, growing healthier or more sickly, or altering in the way of leanness, stoutness, and vigour; thus, after puberty some lads who were thin before grow stout and healthy, and the converse also happens; and the same is equally true of girls. For when in boy or girl the body is loaded with superfluous matter, then, when such superfluities are got rid of in the spermatic or catamenial discharge, their bodies improve in health and condition owing to the removal of what had acted as an impediment to health and proper nutrition; but in such as are of opposite habit their bodies become emaciated and out of health, for then the spermatic discharge in the one case and the catamenial flow in the other take place at the cost of natural healthy conditions.
Furthermore, in the case of maidens the condition of the breasts is diverse in different individuals, for they are sometimes quite big and sometimes little; and as a general rule their size depends on whether or not the body was burthened in childhood with superfluous material. For when the signs of womanhood are nigh but not come, the more there be of moisture the more will it cause the breasts to swell, even to the bursting point; and the result is that the breasts remain during after-life of the bulk that they then acquired. And among men, the breasts grow more conspicuous and more like to those of women, both in young men and old, when the individual temperament is moist and sleek and the reverse of sinewy, and all the more among the dark-complexioned than the fair.
At the outset and till the age of one and twenty the spermatic discharge is devoid of fecundity; afterwards it becomes fertile, but young men and women produce undersized and imperfect progeny, as is the case also with the common run of animals. Young women conceive readily, but, having conceived, their labour in childbed is apt to be difficult.
The frame fails of reaching its full development and ages quickly in men of intemperate lusts and in women who become mothers of many children; for it appears to be the case that growth ceases when the woman has given birth to three children. Women of a lascivious disposition grow more sedate and virtuous after they have borne several children.
After the age of twenty-one women are fully ripe for child-bearing, but men go on increasing in vigour. When the spermatic fluid is of a thin consistency it is infertile; when granular it is fertile and likely to produce male children, but when thin and unclotted it is apt to produce female offspring. And it is about this time of life that in men the beard makes its appearance.
2
The onset of the catamenia in women takes place towards the end of the month; and on this account the wiseacres assert that the moon is feminine, because the discharge in women and the waning of the moon happen at one and the same time, and after the wane and the discharge both one and the other grow whole again. (In some women the catamenia occur regularly but sparsely every month, and more abundantly every third month. ) With those in whom the ailment lasts but a little while, two days or three, recovery is easy; but where the duration is longer, the ailment is more troublesome. For women are ailing during these days; and sometimes the discharge is sudden and sometimes gradual, but in all cases alike there is bodily distress until the attack be over. In many cases at the commencement of the attack, when the discharge is about to appear, there occur spasms and rumbling noises within the womb until such time as the discharge manifests itself.
Under natural conditions it is after recovery from these symptoms that conception takes place in women, and women in whom the signs do not manifest themselves for the most part remain childless. But the rule is not without exception, for some conceive in spite of the absence of these symptoms; and these are cases in which a secretion accumulates, not in such a way as actually to issue forth, but in amount equal to the residuum left in the case of child-bearing women after the normal discharge has taken place. And some conceive while the signs are on but not afterwards, those namely in whom the womb closes up immediately after the discharge. In some cases the menses persist during pregnancy up to the very last; but the result in these cases is that the offspring are poor, and either fail to survive or grow up weakly.
In many cases, owing to excessive desire, arising either from youthful impetuosity or from lengthened abstinence, prolapsion of the womb takes place and the catamenia appear repeatedly, thrice in the month, until conception occurs; and then the womb withdraws upwards again to its proper place. . .
As we have remarked above, the discharge is wont to be more abundant in women than in the females of any other animals. In creatures that do not bring forth their young alive nothing of the sort manifests itself, this particular superfluity being converted into bodily substance; and by the way, in such animals the females are sometimes larger than the males; and moreover, the material is used up sometimes for scutes and sometimes for scales, and sometimes for the abundant covering of feathers, whereas in the vivipara possessed of limbs it is turned into hair and into bodily substance (for man alone among them is smooth-skinned), and into urine, for this excretion is in the majority of such animals thick and copious. Only in the case of women is the superfluity turned into a discharge instead of being utilized in these other ways.
There is something similar to be remarked of men: for in proportion to his size man emits more seminal fluid than any other animal (for which reason man is the smoothest of animals), especially such men as are of a moist habit and not over corpulent, and fair men in greater degree than dark. It is likewise with women; for in the stout, great part of the excretion goes to nourish the body. In the act of intercourse, women of a fair complexion discharge a more plentiful secretion than the dark; and furthermore, a watery and pungent diet conduces to this phenomenon.
3
It is a sign of conception in women when the place is dry immediately after intercourse. If the lips of the orifice be smooth conception is difficult, for the matter slips off; and if they be thick it is also difficult. But if on digital examination the lips feel somewhat rough and adherent, and if they be likewise thin, then the chances are in favour of conception. Accordingly, if conception be desired, we must bring the parts into such a condition as we have just described; but if on the contrary we want to avoid conception then we must bring about a contrary disposition. Wherefore, since if the parts be smooth conception is prevented, some anoint that part of the womb on which the seed falls with oil of cedar, or with ointment of lead or with frankincense, commingled with olive oil. If the seed remain within for seven days then it is certain that conception has taken place; for it is during that period that what is known as effluxion takes place.
In most cases the menstrual discharge recurs for some time after conception has taken place, its duration being mostly thirty days in the case of a female and about forty days in the case of a male child. After parturition also it is common for the discharge to be withheld for an equal number of days, but not in all cases with equal exactitude. After conception, and when the above-mentioned days are past, the discharge no longer takes its natural course but finds its way to the breasts and turns to milk. The first appearance of milk in the breasts is scant in quantity and so to speak cobwebby or interspersed with little threads. And when conception has taken place, there is apt to be a sort of feeling in the region of the flanks, which in some cases quickly swell up a little, especially in thin persons, and also in the groin.
In the case of male children the first movement usually occurs on the right-hand side of the womb and about the fortieth day, but if the child be a female then on the left-hand side and about the ninetieth day. However, we must by no means assume this to be an accurate statement of fact, for there are many exceptions, in which the movement is manifested on the right-hand side though a female child be coming, and on the left-hand side though the infant be a male. And in short, these and all suchlike phenomena are usually subject to differences that may be summed up as differences of degree.
About this period the embryo begins to resolve into distinct parts, it having hitherto consisted of a fleshlike substance without distinction of parts.
What is called effluxion is a destruction of the embryo within the first week, while abortion occurs up to the fortieth day; and the greater number of such embryos as perish do so within the space of these forty days.
In the case of a male embryo aborted at the fortieth day, if it be placed in cold water it holds together in a sort of membrane, but if it be placed in any other fluid it dissolves and disappears. If the membrane be pulled to bits the embryo is revealed, as big as one of the large kind of ants; and all the limbs are plain to see, including the penis, and the eyes also, which as in other animals are of great size. But the female embryo, if it suffer abortion during the first three months, is as a rule found to be undifferentiated; if however it reach the fourth month it comes to be subdivided and quickly attains further differentiation. In short, while within the womb, the female infant accomplishes the whole development of its parts more slowly than the male, and more frequently than the man-child takes ten months to come to perfection. But after birth, the females pass more quickly than the males through youth and maturity and age; and this is especially true of those that bear many children, as indeed I have already said.
4
When the womb has conceived the seed, straightway in the majority of cases it closes up until seven months are fulfilled; but in the eighth month it opens, and the embryo, if it be fertile, descends in the eighth month. But such embryos as are not fertile but are devoid of breath at eight months old, their mothers do not bring into the world by parturition at eight months, neither does the embryo descend within the womb at that period nor does the womb open. And it is a sign that the embryo is not capable of life if it be formed without the above-named circumstances taking place.
After conception women are prone to a feeling of heaviness in all parts of their bodies, and for instance they experience a sensation of darkness in front of the eyes and suffer also from headache. These symptoms appear sooner or later, sometimes as early as the tenth day, according as the patient be more or less burthened with superfluous humours. Nausea also and sickness affect the most of women, and especially such as those that we have just now mentioned, after the menstrual discharge has ceased and before it is yet turned in the direction of the breasts.
The so-called needle-fish (or pipe-fish) is late in spawning, and the greater portion of them are burst asunder by the eggs before spawning; and the eggs are not so many in number as large in size. The young fish cluster round the parent like so many young spiders, for the fish spawns on to herself; and, if any one touch the young, they swim away. The atherine spawns by rubbing its belly against the sand.
Tunny fish also burst asunder by reason of their fat. They live for two years; and the fishermen infer this age from the circumstance that once when there was a failure of the young tunny fish for a year there was a failure of the full-grown tunny the next summer. They are of opinion that the tunny is a fish a year older than the pelamyd. The tunny and the mackerel pair about the close of the month of Elaphebolion, and spawn about the commencement of the month of Hecatombaeon; they deposit their spawn in a sort of bag. The growth of the young tunny is rapid. After the females have spawned in the Euxine, there comes from the egg what some call scordylae, but what the Byzantines nickname the 'auxids' or 'growers', from their growing to a considerable size in a few days; these fish go out of the Pontus in autumn along with the young tunnies, and enter Pontus in the spring as pelamyds. Fishes as a rule take on growth with rapidity, but this is peculiarly the case with all species of fish found in the Pontus; the growth, for instance, of the amia-tunny is quite visible from day to day.
To resume, we must bear in mind that the same fish in the same localities have not the same season for pairing, for conception, for parturition, or for favouring weather. The coracine, for instance, in some places spawns about wheat-harvest. The statements here given pretend only to give the results of general observation.
The conger also spawns, but the fact is not equally obvious in all localities, nor is the spawn plainly visible owing to the fat of the fish; for the spawn is lanky in shape as it is with serpents. However, if it be put on the fire it shows its nature; for the fat evaporates and melts, while the eggs dance about and explode with a crack. Further, if you touch the substances and rub them with your fingers, the fat feels smooth and the egg rough. Some congers are provided with fat but not with any spawn, others are unprovided with fat but have egg-spawn as here described.
18
We have, then, treated pretty fully of the animals that fly in the air or swim in the water, and of such of those that walk on dry land as are oviparous, to wit of their pairing, conception, and the like phenomena; it now remains to treat of the same phenomena in connexion with viviparous land animals and with man.
The statements made in regard to the pairing of the sexes apply partly to the particular kinds of animal and partly to all in general. It is common to all animals to be most excited by the desire of one sex for the other and by the pleasure derived from copulation. The female is most cross-tempered just after parturition, the male during the time of pairing; for instance, stallions at this period bite one another, throw their riders, and chase them. Wild boars, though usually enfeebled at this time as the result of copulation, are now unusually fierce, and fight with one another in an extraordinary way, clothing themselves with defensive armour, or in other words deliberately thickening their hide by rubbing against trees or by coating themselves repeatedly all over with mud and then drying themselves in the sun. They drive one another away from the swine pastures, and fight with such fury that very often both combatants succumb. The case is similar with bulls, rams, and he-goats; for, though at ordinary times they herd together, at breeding time they hold aloof from and quarrel with one another. The male camel also is cross-tempered at pairing time if either a man or a camel comes near him; as for a horse, a camel is ready to fight him at any time. It is the same with wild animals. The bear, the wolf, and the lion are all at this time ferocious towards such as come in their way, but the males of these animals are less given to fight with one another from the fact that they are at no time gregarious. The she-bear is fierce after cubbing, and the bitch after pupping.
Male elephants get savage about pairing time, and for this reason it is stated that men who have charge of elephants in India never allow the males to have intercourse with the females; on the ground that the males go wild at this time and turn topsy-turvy the dwellings of their keepers, lightly constructed as they are, and commit all kinds of havoc. They also state that abundancy of food has a tendency to tame the males. They further introduce other elephants amongst the wild ones, and punish and break them in by setting on the new-comers to chastise the others.
Animals that pair frequently and not at a single specific season, as for instance animals domesticated by man, such as swine and dogs, are found to indulge in such freaks to a lesser degree owing to the frequency of their sexual intercourse.
Of female animals the mare is the most sexually wanton, and next in order comes the cow. In fact, the mare is said to go a-horsing; and the term derived from the habits of this one animal serves as a term of abuse applicable to such females of the human species as are unbridled in the way of sexual appetite. This is the common phenomenon as observed in the sow when she is said to go a-boaring. The mare is said also about this time to get wind-impregnated if not impregnated by the stallion, and for this reason in Crete they never remove the stallion from the mares; for when the mare gets into this condition she runs away from all other horses. The mares under these circumstances fly invariably either northwards or southwards, and never towards either east or west. When this complaint is on them they allow no one to approach, until either they are exhausted with fatigue or have reached the sea. Under either of these circumstances they discharge a certain substance 'hippomanes', the title given to a growth on a new-born foal; this resembles the sow-virus, and is in great request amongst women who deal in drugs and potions. About horsing time the mares huddle closer together, are continually switching their tails, their neigh is abnormal in sound, and from the sexual organ there flows a liquid resembling genital sperm, but much thinner than the sperm of the male. It is this substance that some call hippomanes, instead of the growth found on the foal; they say it is extremely difficult to get as it oozes out only in small drops at a time. Mares also, when in heat, discharge urine frequently, and frisk with one another. Such are the phenomena connected with the horse.
Cows go a-bulling; and so completely are they under the influence of the sexual excitement that the herdsmen have no control over them and cannot catch hold of them in the fields. Mares and kine alike, when in heat, indicate the fact by the upraising of their genital organs, and by continually voiding urine. Further, kine mount the bulls, follow them about; and keep standing beside them. The younger females both with horses and oxen are the first to get in heat; and their sexual appetites are all the keener if the weather warm and their bodily condition be healthy. Mares, when clipt of their coat, have the sexual feeling checked, and assume a downcast drooping appearance. The stallion recognizes by the scent the mares that form his company, even though they have been together only a few days before breeding time: if they get mixed up with other mares, the stallion bites and drives away the interlopers. He feeds apart, accompanied by his own troop of mares. Each stallion has assigned to him about thirty mares or even somewhat more; when a strange stallion approaches, he huddles his mares into a close ring, runs round them, then advances to the encounter of the newcomer; if one of the mares make a movement, he bites her and drives her back. The bull in breeding time begins to graze with the cows, and fights with other bulls (having hitherto grazed with them), which is termed by graziers 'herd-spurning'. Often in Epirus a bull disappears for three months together. In a general way one may state that of male animals either none or few herd with their respective females before breeding time; but they keep separate after reaching maturity, and the two sexes feed apart. Sows, when they are moved by sexual desire, or are, as it is called, a-boaring, will attack even human beings.
With bitches the same sexual condition is termed 'getting into heat'. The sexual organ rises at this time, and there is a moisture about the parts. Mares drip with a white liquid at this season.
Female animals are subject to menstrual discharges, but never in such-abundance as is the female of the human species. With ewes and she-goats there are signs of menstruation in breeding time, just before the for submitting to the male; after copulation also the signs are manifest, and then cease for an interval until the period of parturition arrives; the process then supervenes, and it is by this supervention that the shepherd knows that such and such an ewe is about to bring forth. After parturition comes copious menstruation, not at first much tinged with blood, but deeply dyed with it by and by. With the cow, the she ass, and the mare, the discharge is more copious actually, owing to their greater bulk, but proportionally to the greater bulk it is far less copious. The cow, for instance, when in heat, exhibits a small discharge to the extent of a quarter of a pint of liquid or a little less; and the time when this discharge takes place is the best time for her to be covered by the bull. Of all quadrupeds the mare is the most easily delivered of its young, exhibits the least amount of discharge after parturition, and emits the least amount of blood; that is to say, of all animals in proportion to size. With kine and mares menstruation usually manifests itself at intervals of two, four, and six months; but, unless one be constantly attending to and thoroughly acquainted with such animals, it is difficult to verify the circumstance, and the result is that many people are under the belief that the process never takes place with these animals at all.
With mules menstruation never takes place, but the urine of the female is thicker than the urine of the male. As a general rule the discharge from the bladder in the case of quadrupeds is thicker than it is in the human species, and this discharge with ewes and she-goats is thicker than with rams and he-goats; but the urine of the jackass is thicker than the urine of the she-ass, and the urine of the bull is more pungent than the urine of the cow. After parturition the urine of all quadrupeds becomes thicker, especially with such animals as exhibit comparatively slight discharges. At breeding time the milk become purulent, but after parturition it becomes wholesome. During pregnancy ewes and she-goats get fatter and eat more; as is also the case with cows, and, indeed, with the females of all quadrupeds.
In general the sexual appetites of animals are keenest in spring-time; the time of pairing, however, is not the same for all, but is adapted so as to ensure the rearing of the young at a convenient season.
Domesticated swine carry their young for four months, and bring forth a litter of twenty at the utmost; and, by the way, if the litter be exceedingly numerous they cannot rear all the young. As the sow grows old she continues to bear, but grows indifferent to the boar; she conceives after a single copulation, but they have to put the boar to her repeatedly owing to her dropping after intercourse what is called the sow-virus. This incident befalls all sows, but some of them discharge the genital sperm as well. During conception any one of the litter that gets injured or dwarfed is called an afterpig or scut: such injury may occur at any part of the womb. After littering the mother offers the foremost teat to the first-born. When the sow is in heat, she must not at once be put to the boar, but only after she lets her lugs drop, for otherwise she is apt to get into heat again; if she be put to the boar when in full condition of heat, one copulation, as has been said, is sufficient. It is as well to supply the boar at the period of copulation with barley, and the sow at the time of parturition with boiled barley. Some swine give fine litters only at the beginning, with others the litters improve as the mothers grow in age and size. It is said that a sow, if she have one of her eyes knocked out, is almost sure to die soon afterwards. Swine for the most part live for fifteen years, but some fall little short of the twenty.
19
Ewes conceive after three or four copulations with the ram. If rain falls after intercourse, the ram impregnates the ewe again; and it is the same with the she-goat. The ewe bears usually two lambs, sometimes three or four. Both ewe and she-goat carry their young for five months; consequently wherever a district is sunny and the animals are used to comfort and well fed, they bear twice in the year. The goat lives for eight years and the sheep for ten, but in most cases not so long; the bell-wether, however, lives to fifteen years. In every flock they train one of the rams for bell-wether. When he is called on by name by the shepherd, he takes the lead of the flock: and to this duty the creature is trained from its earliest years. Sheep in Ethiopia live for twelve or thirteen years, goats for ten or eleven. In the case of the sheep and the goat the two sexes have intercourse all their lives long.
Twins with sheep and goats may be due to richness of pasturage, or to the fact that either the ram or the he-goat is a twin-begetter or that the ewe or the she-goat is a twin-bearer. Of these animals some give birth to males and others to females; and the difference in this respect depends on the waters they drink and also on the sires. And if they submit to the male when north winds are blowing, they are apt to bear males; if when south winds are blowing, females. Such as bear females may get to bear males, due regard being paid to their looking northwards when put to the male. Ewes accustomed to be put to the ram early will refuse him if he attempt to mount them late. Lambs are born white and black according as white or black veins are under the ram's tongue; the lambs are white if the veins are white, and black if the veins are black, and white and black if the veins are white and black; and red if the veins are red. The females that drink salted waters are the first to take the male; the water should be salted before and after parturition, and again in the springtime. With goats the shepherds appoint no bell-wether, as the animal is not capable of repose but frisky and apt to ramble. If at the appointed season the elders of the flock are eager for intercourse, the shepherds say that it bodes well for the flock; if the younger ones, that the flock is going to be bad.
20
Of dogs there are several breeds. Of these the Laconian hound of either sex is fit for breeding purposes when eight months old: at about the same age some dogs lift the leg when voiding urine. The bitch conceives with one lining; this is clearly seen in the case where a dog contrives to line a bitch by stealth, as they impregnate after mounting only once. The Laconian bitch carries her young the sixth part of a year or sixty days: or more by one, two, or three, or less by one; the pups are blind for twelve days after birth. After pupping, the bitch gets in heat again in six months, but not before. Some bitches carry their young for the fifth part of the year or for seventy-two days; and their pups are blind for fourteen days. Other bitches carry their young for a quarter of a year or for three whole months; and the whelps of these are blind for seventeen days. The bitch appears go in heat for the same length of time. Menstruation continues for seven days, and a swelling of the genital organ occurs simultaneously; it is not during this period that the bitch is disposed to submit to the dog, but in the seven days that follow. The bitch as a rule goes in heat for fourteen days, but occasionally for sixteen. The birth-discharge occurs simultaneously with the delivery of the whelps, and the substance of it is thick and mucous. (The falling-off in bulk on the part of the mother is not so great as might have been inferred from the size of her frame. ) The bitch is usually supplied with milk five days before parturition; some seven days previously, some four; and the milk is serviceable immediately after birth. The Laconian bitch is supplied with milk thirty days after lining. The milk at first is thickish, but gets thinner by degrees; with the bitch the milk is thicker than with the female of any other animal excepting the sow and the hare. When the bitch arrives at full growth an indication is given of her capacity for the male; that is to say, just as occurs in the female of the human species, a swelling takes place in the teats of the breasts, and the breasts take on gristle. This incident, however, it is difficult for any but an expert to detect, as the part that gives the indication is inconsiderable. The preceding statements relate to the female, and not one of them to the male. The male as a rule lifts his leg to void urine when six months old; some at a later period, when eight months old, some before they reach six months. In a general way one may put it that they do so when they are out of puppyhood. The bitch squats down when she voids urine; it is a rare exception that she lifts the leg to do so. The bitch bears twelve pups at the most, but usually five or six; occasionally a bitch will bear one only. The bitch of the Laconian breed generally bears eight. The two sexes have intercourse with each other at all periods of life. A very remarkable phenomenon is observed in the case of the Laconian hound: in other words, he is found to be more vigorous in commerce with the female after being hard-worked than when allowed to live idle.
The dog of the Laconian breed lives ten years, and the bitch twelve. The bitch of other breeds usually lives for fourteen or fifteen years, but some live to twenty; and for this reason certain critics consider that Homer did well in representing the dog of Ulysses as having died in his twentieth year. With the Laconian hound, owing to the hardships to which the male is put, he is less long-lived than the female; with other breeds the distinction as to longevity is not very apparent, though as a general rule the male is the longer-lived.
The dog sheds no teeth except the so-called 'canines'; these a dog of either sex sheds when four months old. As they shed these only, many people are in doubt as to the fact, and some people, owing to their shedding but two and its being hard to hit upon the time when they do so, fancy that the animal sheds no teeth at all; others, after observing the shedding of two, come to the conclusion that the creature sheds the rest in due turn. Men discern the age of a dog by inspection of its teeth; with young dogs the teeth are white and sharp pointed, with old dogs black and blunted.
21
The bull impregnates the cow at a single mount, and mounts with such vigour as to weigh down the cow; if his effort be unsuccessful, the cow must be allowed an interval of twenty days before being again submitted. Bulls of mature age decline to mount the same cow several times on one day, except, by the way, at considerable intervals. Young bulls by reason of their vigour are enabled to mount the same cow several times in one day, and a good many cows besides. The bull is the least salacious of male animals. . . . The victor among the bulls is the one that mounts the females; when he gets exhausted by his amorous efforts, his beaten antagonist sets on him and very often gets the better of the conflict. The bull and the cow are about a year old when it is possible for them to have commerce with chance of offspring: as a rule, however, they are about twenty months old, but it is universally allowed that they are capable in this respect at the age of two years. The cow goes with calf for nine months, and she calves in the tenth month; some maintain that they go in calf for ten months, to the very day. A calf delivered before the times here specified is an abortion and never lives, however little premature its birth may have been, as its hooves are weak and imperfect. The cow as a rule bears but one calf, very seldom two; she submits to the bull and bears as long as she lives.
Cows live for about fifteen years, and the bulls too, if they have been castrated; but some live for twenty years or even more, if their bodily constitutions be sound. The herdsmen tame the castrated bulls, and give them an office in the herd analogous to the office of the bell-wether in a flock; and these bulls live to an exceptionally advanced age, owing to their exemption from hardship and to their browsing on pasture of good quality. The bull is in fullest vigour when five years old, which leads the critics to commend Homer for applying to the bull the epithets of 'five-year-old', or 'of nine seasons', which epithets are alike in meaning. The ox sheds his teeth at the age of two years, not all together but just as the horse sheds his. When the animal suffers from podagra it does not shed the hoof, but is subject to a painful swelling in the feet. The milk of the cow is serviceable after parturition, and before parturition there is no milk at all. The milk that first presents itself becomes as hard as stone when it clots; this result ensues unless it be previously diluted with water. Oxen younger than a year old do not copulate unless under circumstances of an unnatural and portentous kind: instances have been recorded of copulation in both sexes at the age of four months. Kine in general begin to submit to the male about the month of Thargelion or of Scirophorion; some, however, are capable of conception right on to the autumn. When kine in large numbers receive the bull and conceive, it is looked upon as prognostic of rain and stormy weather. Kine herd together like mares, but in lesser degree.
22
In the case of horses, the stallion and the mare are first fitted for breeding purposes when two years old. Instances, however, of such early maturity are rare, and their young are exceptionally small and weak; the ordinary age for sexual maturity is three years, and from that age to twenty the two sexes go on improving in the quality of their offspring. The mare carries her foal for eleven months, and casts it in the twelfth. It is not a fixed number of days that the stallion takes to impregnate the mare; it may be one, two, three, or more. An ass in covering will impregnate more expeditiously than a stallion. The act of intercourse with horses is not laborious as it is with oxen. In both sexes the horse is the most salacious of animals next after the human species. The breeding faculties of the younger horses may be stimulated beyond their years if they be supplied with good feeding in abundance. The mare as a rule bears only one foal; occasionally she has two, but never more. A mare has been known to cast two mules; but such a circumstance was regarded as unnatural and portentous.
The horse then is first fitted for breeding purposes at the age of two and a half years, but achieves full sexual maturity when it has ceased to shed teeth, except it be naturally infertile; it must be added, however, that some horses have been known to impregnate the mare while the teeth were in process of shedding.
The horse has forty teeth. It sheds its first set of four, two from the upper jaw and two from the lower, when two and a half years old. After a year's interval, it sheds another set of four in like manner, and another set of four after yet another year's interval; after arriving at the age of four years and six months it sheds no more. An instance has occurred where a horse shed all his teeth at once, and another instance of a horse shedding all his teeth with his last set of four; but such instances are very rare. It consequently happens that a horse when four and a half years old is in excellent condition for breeding purposes.
The older horses, whether of the male or female, are the more generatively productive. Horses will cover mares from which they have been foaled and mares which they have begotten; and, indeed, a troop of horses is only considered perfect when such promiscuity of intercourse occurs. Scythians use pregnant mares for riding when the embryo has turned rather soon in the womb, and they assert that thereby the mothers have all the easier delivery. Quadrupeds as a rule lie down for parturition, and in consequence the young of them all come out of the womb sideways. The mare, however, when the time for parturition arrives, stands erect and in that posture casts its foal.
The horse in general lives for eighteen or twenty years; some horses live for twenty-five or even thirty, and if a horse be treated with extreme care, it may last on to the age of fifty years; a horse, however, when it reaches thirty years is regarded as exceptionally old. The mare lives usually for twenty-five years, though instances have occurred of their attaining the age of forty. The male is less long-lived than the female by reason of the sexual service he is called on to render; and horses that are reared in a private stable live longer than such as are reared in troops. The mare attains her full length and height at five years old, the stallion at six; in another six years the animal reaches its full bulk, and goes on improving until it is twenty years old. The female, then, reaches maturity more rapidly than the male, but in the womb the case is reversed, just as is observed in regard to the sexes of the human species; and the same phenomenon is observed in the case of all animals that bear several young.
The mare is said to suckle a mule-foal for six months, but not to allow its approach for any longer on account of the pain it is put to by the hard tugging of the young; an ordinary foal it allows to suck for a longer period.
Horse and mule are at their best after the shedding of the teeth. After they have shed them all, it is not easy to distinguish their age; hence they are said to carry their mark before the shedding, but not after. However, even after the shedding their age is pretty well recognized by the aid of the canines; for in the case of horses much ridden these teeth are worn away by attrition caused by the insertion of the bit; in the case of horses not ridden the teeth are large and detached, and in young horses they are sharp and small.
The male of the horse will breed at all seasons and during its whole life; the mare can take the horse all its life long, but is not thus ready to pair at all seasons unless it be held in check by a halter or some other compulsion be brought to bear. There is no fixed time at which intercourse of the two sexes cannot take place; and accordingly intercourse may chance to take place at a time that may render difficult the rearing of the future progeny. In a stable in Opus there was a stallion that used to serve mares when forty years old: his fore legs had to be lifted up for the operation.
Mares first take the horse in the spring-time. After a mare has foaled she does not get impregnated at once again, but only after a considerable interval; in fact, the foals will be all the better if the interval extend over four or five years. It is, at all events, absolutely necessary to allow an interval of one year, and for that period to let her lie fallow. A mare, then, breeds at intervals; a she-ass breeds on and on without intermission. Of mares some are absolutely sterile, others are capable of conception but incapable of bringing the foal to full term; it is said to be an indication of this condition in a mare, that her foal if dissected is found to have other kidney-shaped substances round about its kidneys, presenting the appearance of having four kidneys.
After parturition the mare at once swallows the after-birth, and bites off the growth, called the 'hippomanes', that is found on the forehead of the foal. This growth is somewhat smaller than a dried fig; and in shape is broad and round, and in colour black. If any bystander gets possession of it before the mare, and the mare gets a smell of it, she goes wild and frantic at the smell. And it is for this reason that venders of drugs and simples hold the substance in high request and include it among their stores.
If an ass cover a mare after the mare has been covered by a horse, the ass will destroy the previously formed embryo.
(Horse-trainers do not appoint a horse as leader to a troop, as herdsmen appoint a bull as leader to a herd, and for this reason that the horse is not steady but quick-tempered and skittish. )
23
The ass of both sexes is capable of breeding, and sheds its first teeth at the age of two and a half years; it sheds its second teeth within six months, its third within another six months, and the fourth after the like interval. These fourth teeth are termed the gnomons or age-indicators.
A she-ass has been known to conceive when a year old, and the foal to be reared. After intercourse with the male it will discharge the genital sperm unless it be hindered, and for this reason it is usually beaten after such intercourse and chased about. It casts its young in the twelfth month. It usually bears but one foal, and that is its natural number, occasionally however it bears twins. The ass if it cover a mare destroys, as has been said, the embryo previously begotten by the horse; but, after the mare has been covered by the ass, the horse supervening will not spoil the embryo. The she-ass has milk in the tenth month of pregnancy. Seven days after casting a foal the she-ass submits to the male, and is almost sure to conceive if put to the male on this particular day; the same result, however, is quite possible later on. The she-ass will refuse to cast her foal with any one looking on or in the daylight and just before foaling she has to be led away into a dark place. If the she-ass has had young before the shedding of the index-teeth, she will bear all her life through; but if not, then she will neither conceive nor bear for the rest of her days. The ass lives for more than thirty years, and the she-ass lives longer than the male.
When there is a cross between a horse and a she-ass or a jackass and a mare, there is much greater chance of a miscarriage than where the commerce is normal. The period for gestation in the case of a cross depends on the male, and is just what it would have been if the male had had commerce with a female of his own kind. In regard to size, looks, and vigour, the foal is more apt to resemble the mother than the sire. If such hybrid connexions be continued without intermittence, the female will soon go sterile; and for this reason trainers always allow of intervals between breeding times. A mare will not take the ass, nor a she ass the horse, unless the ass or she-ass shall have been suckled by a mare; and for this reason trainers put foals of the she-ass under mares, which foals are technically spoken of as 'mare-suckled'. These asses, thus reared, mount the mares in the open pastures, mastering them by force as the stallions do.
24
A mule is fitted for commerce with the female after the first shedding of its teeth, and at the age of seven will impregnate effectually; and where connexion has taken place with a mare, a 'hinny' has been known to be produced. After the seventh year it has no further intercourse with the female. A female mule has been known to be impregnated, but without the impregnation being followed up by parturition. In Syrophoenicia she-mules submit to the mule and bear young; but the breed, though it resembles the ordinary one, is different and specific. The hinny or stunted mule is foaled by a mare when she has gone sick during gestation, and corresponds to the dwarf in the human species and to the after-pig or scut in swine; and as is the case with dwarfs, the sexual organ of the hinny is abnormally large.
The mule lives for a number of years. There are on record cases of mules living to the age of eighty, as did one in Athens at the time of the building of the temple; this mule on account of its age was let go free, but continued to assist in dragging burdens, and would go side by side with the other draught-beasts and stimulate them to their work; and in consequence a public decree was passed forbidding any baker driving the creature away from his bread-tray. The she-mule grows old more slowly than the mule. Some assert that the she-mule menstruates by the act of voiding her urine, and that the mule owes the prematurity of his decay to his habit of smelling at the urine. So much for the modes of generation in connexion with these animals.
25
Breeders and trainers can distinguish between young and old quadrupeds. If, when drawn back from the jaw, the skin at once goes back to its place, the animal is young; if it remains long wrinkled up, the animal is old.
26
The camel carries its young for ten months, and bears but one at a time and never more; the young camel is removed from the mother when a year old. The animal lives for a long period, more than fifty years. It bears in spring-time, and gives milk until the time of the next conception. Its flesh and milk are exceptionally palatable. The milk is drunk mixed with water in the proportion of either two to one or three to one.
27
The elephant of either sex is fitted for breeding before reaching the age of twenty. The female carries her young, according to some accounts, for two and a half years; according to others, for three years; and the discrepancy in the assigned periods is due to the fact that there are never human eyewitnesses to the commerce between the sexes. The female settles down on its rear to cast its young, and obviously suffers greatly during the process. The young one, immediately after birth, sucks the mother, not with its trunk but with the mouth; and can walk about and see distinctly the moment it is born.
28
The wild sow submits to the boar at the beginning of winter, and in the spring-time retreats for parturition to a lair in some district inaccessible to intrusion, hemmed in with sheer cliffs and chasms and overshadowed by trees. The boar usually remains by the sow for thirty days. The number of the litter and the period gestation is the same as in the case of the domesticated congener. The sound of the grunt also is similar; only that the sow grunts continually, and the boar but seldom. Of the wild boars such as are castrated grow to the largest size and become fiercest: to which circumstance Homer alludes when he says:-
'He reared against him a wild castrated boar: it was not like a food-devouring brute, but like a forest-clad promontory. '
Wild boars become castrated owing to an itch befalling them in early life in the region of the testicles, and the castration is superinduced by their rubbing themselves against the trunks of trees.
29
The hind, as has been stated, submits to the stag as a rule only under compulsion, as she is unable to endure the male often owing to the rigidity of the penis. However, they do occasionally submit to the stag as the ewe submits ram; and when they are in heat the hinds avoid one another. The stag is not constant to one particular hind, but after a while quits one and mates with others. The breeding time is after the rising of Arcturus, during the months of Boedromion and Maimacterion. The period of gestation lasts for eight months. Conception comes on a few days after intercourse; and a number of hinds can be impregnated by a single male. The hind, as a rule, bears but one fawn, although instances have been known of her casting two. Out of dread of wild beasts she casts her young by the side of the high-road. The young fawn grows with rapidity. Menstruation occurs at no other time with the hind; it takes place only after parturition, and the substance is phlegm-like.
The hind leads the fawn to her lair; this is her place of refuge, a cave with a single inlet, inside which she shelters herself against attack.
Fabulous stories are told concerning the longevity of the animal, but the stories have never been verified, and the brevity of the period of gestation and the rapidity of growth in the fawn would not lead one to attribute extreme longevity to this creature.
In the mountain called Elaphoeis or Deer Mountain, which is in Arginussa in Asia Minor-the place, by the way, where Alcibiades was assassinated-all the hinds have the ear split, so that, if they stray to a distance, they can be recognized by this mark; and the embryo actually has the mark while yet in the womb of the mother.
The hind has four teats like the cow. After the hinds have become pregnant, the males all segregate one by one, and in consequence of the violence of their sexual passions they keep each one to himself, dig a hole in the ground, and bellow from time to time; in all these particulars they resemble the goat, and their foreheads from getting wetted become black, as is also the case with the goat. In this way they pass the time until the rain falls, after which time they turn to pasture. The animal acts in this way owing to its sexual wantonness and also to its obesity; for in summer-time it becomes so exceptionally fat as to be unable to run: in fact at this period they can be overtaken by the hunters that pursue them on foot in the second or third run; and, by the way, in consequence of the heat of the weather and their getting out of breath they always make for water in their runs. In the rutting season, the flesh of the deer is unsavoury and rank, like the flesh of the he-goat. In winter-time the deer becomes thin and weak, but towards the approach of the spring he is at his best for running. When on the run the deer keeps pausing from time to time, and waits until his pursuer draws upon him, whereupon he starts off again. This habit appears due to some internal pain: at all events, the gut is so slender and weak that, if you strike the animal ever so softly, it is apt to break asunder, though the hide of the animal remains sound and uninjured.
30
Bears, as has been previously stated, do not copulate with the male mounting the back of the female, but with the female lying down under the male. The she-bear goes with young for thirty days. She brings forth sometimes one cub, sometimes two cubs, and at most five. Of all animals the newly born cub of the she bear is the smallest in proportion to the size of the mother; that is to say, it is larger than a mouse but smaller than a weasel. It is also smooth and blind, and its legs and most of its organs are as yet inarticulate. Pairing takes Place in the month of Elaphebolion, and parturition about the time for retiring into winter quarters; about this time the bear and the she-bear are at the fattest. After the she-bear has reared her young, she comes out of her winter lair in the third month, when it is already spring. The female porcupine, by the way, hibernates and goes with young the same number of days as the she-bear, and in all respects as to parturition resembles this animal. When a she-bear is with young, it is a very hard task to catch her.
31
It has already been stated that the lion and lioness copulate rearwards, and that these animals are opisthuretic. They do not copulate nor bring forth at all seasons indiscriminately, but once in the year only. The lioness brings forth in the spring, generally two cubs at a time, and six at the very most; but sometimes only one. The story about the lioness discharging her womb in the act of parturition is a pure fable, and was merely invented to account for the scarcity of the animal; for the animal is, as is well known, a rare animal, and is not found in many countries. In fact, in the whole of Europe it is only found in the strip between the rivers Achelous and Nessus. The cubs of the lioness when newly born are exceedingly small, and can scarcely walk when two months old. The Syrian lion bears cubs five times: five cubs at the first litter, then four, then three, then two, and lastly one; after this the lioness ceases to bear for the rest of her days. The lioness has no mane, but this appendage is peculiar to the lion. The lion sheds only the four so-called canines, two in the upper jaw and two in the lower; and it sheds them when it is six months old.
32
The hyena in colour resembles the wolf, but is more shaggy, and is furnished with a mane running all along the spine. What is recounted concerning its genital organs, to the effect that every hyena is furnished with the organ both of the male and the female, is untrue. The fact is that the sexual organ of the male hyena resembles the same organ in the wolf and in the dog; the part resembling the female genital organ lies underneath the tail, and does to some extent resemble the female organ, but it is unprovided with duct or passage, and the passage for the residuum comes underneath it. The female hyena has the part that resembles the organ of the male, and, as in the case of the male, has it underneath her tail, unprovided with duct or passage; and after it the passage for the residuum, and underneath this the true female genital organ. The female hyena has a womb, like all other female animals of the same kind. It is an exceedingly rare circumstance to meet with a female hyena. At least a hunter said that out of eleven hyenas he had caught, only one was a female.
33
Hares copulate in a rearward posture, as has been stated, for the animal is opisthuretic. They breed and bear at all seasons, superfoetate during pregnancy, and bear young every month. They do not give birth to their young ones all together at one time, but bring them forth at intervals over as many days as the circumstances of each case may require. The female is supplied with milk before parturition; and after bearing submits immediately to the male, and is capable of conception while suckling her young. The milk in consistency resembles sow's milk. The young are born blind, as is the case with the greater part Of the fissipeds or toed animals.
34
The fox mounts the vixen in copulation, and the vixen bears young like the she-bear; in fact, her young ones are even more inarticulately formed. Before parturition she retires to sequestered places, so that it is a great rarity for a vixen to be caught while pregnant. After parturition she warms her young and gets them into shape by licking them. She bears four at most at a birth.
35
The wolf resembles the dog in regard to the time of conception and parturition, the number of the litter, and the blindness of the newborn young. The sexes couple at one special period, and the female brings forth at the beginning of the summer. There is an account given of the parturition of the she-wolf that borders on the fabulous, to the effect that she confines her lying-in to within twelve particular days of the year. And they give the reason for this in the form of a myth, viz. that when they transported Leto in so many days from the land of the Hyperboreans to the island of Delos, she assumed the form of a she-wolf to escape the anger of Here. Whether the account be correct or not has not yet been verified; I give it merely as it is currently told. There is no more of truth in the current statement that the she-wolf bears once and only once in her lifetime.
The cat and the ichneumon bear as many young as the dog, and live on the same food; they live about six years. The cubs of the panther are born blind like those of the wolf, and the female bears four at the most at one birth. The particulars of conception are the same for the thos, or civet, as for the dog; the cubs of the animal are born blind, and the female bears two, or three, or four at a birth. It is long in the body and low in stature; but not withstanding the shortness of its legs it is exceptionally fleet of foot, owing to the suppleness of its frame and its capacity for leaping.
36
There is found in Syria a so-called mule. It is not the same as the cross between the horse and ass, but resembles it just as a wild ass resembles the domesticated congener, and derives its name from the resemblance. Like the wild ass, this wild mule is remarkable for its speed. The animals of this species interbreed with one another; and a proof of this statement may be gathered from the fact that a certain number of them were brought into Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces, the father of Pharnabazus, and the animal is there still. The number originally introduced was nine, and there are three there at the present day.
37
The phenomena of generation in regard to the mouse are the most astonishing both for the number of the young and for the rapidity of recurrence in the births. On one occasion a she-mouse in a state of pregnancy was shut up by accident in a jar containing millet-seed, and after a little while the lid of the jar was removed and upwards of one hundred and twenty mice were found inside it.
The rate of propagation of field mice in country places, and the destruction that they cause, are beyond all telling. In many places their number is so incalculable that but very little of the corn-crop is left to the farmer; and so rapid is their mode of proceeding that sometimes a small farmer will one day observe that it is time for reaping, and on the following morning, when he takes his reapers afield, he finds his entire crop devoured. Their disappearance is unaccountable: in a few days not a mouse will there be to be seen. And yet in the time before these few days men fail to keep down their numbers by fumigating and unearthing them, or by regularly hunting them and turning in swine upon them; for pigs, by the way, turn up the mouse-holes by rooting with their snouts. Foxes also hunt them, and the wild ferrets in particular destroy them, but they make no way against the prolific qualities of the animal and the rapidity of its breeding. When they are super-abundant, nothing succeeds in thinning them down except the rain; but after heavy rains they disappear rapidly.
In a certain district of Persia when a female mouse is dissected the female embryos appear to be pregnant. Some people assert, and positively assert, that a female mouse by licking salt can become pregnant without the intervention of the male.
Mice in Egypt are covered with bristles like the hedgehog. There is also a different breed of mice that walk on their two hind-legs; their front legs are small and their hind-legs long; the breed is exceedingly numerous. There are many other breeds of mice than are here referred to.
Book VII
1
As to Man's growth, first within his mother's womb and afterward to old age, the course of nature, in so far as man is specially concerned, is after the following manner. And, by the way, the difference of male and female and of their respective organs has been dealt with heretofore. When twice seven years old, in the most of cases, the male begins to engender seed; and at the same time hair appears upon the pubes, in like manner, so Alcmaeon of Croton remarks, as plants first blossom and then seed. About the same time, the voice begins to alter, getting harsher and more uneven, neither shrill as formerly nor deep as afterward, nor yet of any even tone, but like an instrument whose strings are frayed and out of tune; and it is called, by way of by-word, the bleat of the billy-goat. Now this breaking of the voice is the more apparent in those who are making trial of their sexual powers; for in those who are prone to lustfulness the voice turns into the voice of a man, but not so in the continent. For if a lad strive diligently to hinder his voice from breaking, as some do of those who devote themselves to music, the voice lasts a long while unbroken and may even persist with little change. And the breasts swell and likewise the private parts, altering in size and shape. (And by the way, at this time of life those who try by friction to provoke emission of seed are apt to experience pain as well as voluptuous sensations. ) At the same age in the female, the breasts swell and the so-called catamenia commence to flow; and this fluid resembles fresh blood. There is another discharge, a white one, by the way, which occurs in girls even at a very early age, more especially if their diet be largely of a fluid nature; and this malady causes arrest of growth and loss of flesh. In the majority of cases the catamenia are noticed by the time the breasts have grown to the height of two fingers' breadth. In girls, too, about this time the voice changes to a deeper note; for while in general the woman's voice is higher than the man's, so also the voices of girls are pitched in a higher key than the elder women's, just as the boy's are higher than the men's; and the girls' voices are shriller than the boys', and a maid's flute is tuned sharper than a lad's.
Girls of this age have much need of surveillance. For then in particular they feel a natural impulse to make usage of the sexual faculties that are developing in them; so that unless they guard against any further impulse beyond that inevitable one which their bodily development of itself supplies, even in the case of those who abstain altogether from passionate indulgence, they contract habits which are apt to continue into later life. For girls who give way to wantonness grow more and more wanton; and the same is true of boys, unless they be safeguarded from one temptation and another; for the passages become dilated and set up a local flux or running, and besides this the recollection of pleasure associated with former indulgence creates a longing for its repetition.
Some men are congenitally impotent owing to structural defect; and in like manner women also may suffer from congenital incapacity. Both men and women are liable to constitutional change, growing healthier or more sickly, or altering in the way of leanness, stoutness, and vigour; thus, after puberty some lads who were thin before grow stout and healthy, and the converse also happens; and the same is equally true of girls. For when in boy or girl the body is loaded with superfluous matter, then, when such superfluities are got rid of in the spermatic or catamenial discharge, their bodies improve in health and condition owing to the removal of what had acted as an impediment to health and proper nutrition; but in such as are of opposite habit their bodies become emaciated and out of health, for then the spermatic discharge in the one case and the catamenial flow in the other take place at the cost of natural healthy conditions.
Furthermore, in the case of maidens the condition of the breasts is diverse in different individuals, for they are sometimes quite big and sometimes little; and as a general rule their size depends on whether or not the body was burthened in childhood with superfluous material. For when the signs of womanhood are nigh but not come, the more there be of moisture the more will it cause the breasts to swell, even to the bursting point; and the result is that the breasts remain during after-life of the bulk that they then acquired. And among men, the breasts grow more conspicuous and more like to those of women, both in young men and old, when the individual temperament is moist and sleek and the reverse of sinewy, and all the more among the dark-complexioned than the fair.
At the outset and till the age of one and twenty the spermatic discharge is devoid of fecundity; afterwards it becomes fertile, but young men and women produce undersized and imperfect progeny, as is the case also with the common run of animals. Young women conceive readily, but, having conceived, their labour in childbed is apt to be difficult.
The frame fails of reaching its full development and ages quickly in men of intemperate lusts and in women who become mothers of many children; for it appears to be the case that growth ceases when the woman has given birth to three children. Women of a lascivious disposition grow more sedate and virtuous after they have borne several children.
After the age of twenty-one women are fully ripe for child-bearing, but men go on increasing in vigour. When the spermatic fluid is of a thin consistency it is infertile; when granular it is fertile and likely to produce male children, but when thin and unclotted it is apt to produce female offspring. And it is about this time of life that in men the beard makes its appearance.
2
The onset of the catamenia in women takes place towards the end of the month; and on this account the wiseacres assert that the moon is feminine, because the discharge in women and the waning of the moon happen at one and the same time, and after the wane and the discharge both one and the other grow whole again. (In some women the catamenia occur regularly but sparsely every month, and more abundantly every third month. ) With those in whom the ailment lasts but a little while, two days or three, recovery is easy; but where the duration is longer, the ailment is more troublesome. For women are ailing during these days; and sometimes the discharge is sudden and sometimes gradual, but in all cases alike there is bodily distress until the attack be over. In many cases at the commencement of the attack, when the discharge is about to appear, there occur spasms and rumbling noises within the womb until such time as the discharge manifests itself.
Under natural conditions it is after recovery from these symptoms that conception takes place in women, and women in whom the signs do not manifest themselves for the most part remain childless. But the rule is not without exception, for some conceive in spite of the absence of these symptoms; and these are cases in which a secretion accumulates, not in such a way as actually to issue forth, but in amount equal to the residuum left in the case of child-bearing women after the normal discharge has taken place. And some conceive while the signs are on but not afterwards, those namely in whom the womb closes up immediately after the discharge. In some cases the menses persist during pregnancy up to the very last; but the result in these cases is that the offspring are poor, and either fail to survive or grow up weakly.
In many cases, owing to excessive desire, arising either from youthful impetuosity or from lengthened abstinence, prolapsion of the womb takes place and the catamenia appear repeatedly, thrice in the month, until conception occurs; and then the womb withdraws upwards again to its proper place. . .
As we have remarked above, the discharge is wont to be more abundant in women than in the females of any other animals. In creatures that do not bring forth their young alive nothing of the sort manifests itself, this particular superfluity being converted into bodily substance; and by the way, in such animals the females are sometimes larger than the males; and moreover, the material is used up sometimes for scutes and sometimes for scales, and sometimes for the abundant covering of feathers, whereas in the vivipara possessed of limbs it is turned into hair and into bodily substance (for man alone among them is smooth-skinned), and into urine, for this excretion is in the majority of such animals thick and copious. Only in the case of women is the superfluity turned into a discharge instead of being utilized in these other ways.
There is something similar to be remarked of men: for in proportion to his size man emits more seminal fluid than any other animal (for which reason man is the smoothest of animals), especially such men as are of a moist habit and not over corpulent, and fair men in greater degree than dark. It is likewise with women; for in the stout, great part of the excretion goes to nourish the body. In the act of intercourse, women of a fair complexion discharge a more plentiful secretion than the dark; and furthermore, a watery and pungent diet conduces to this phenomenon.
3
It is a sign of conception in women when the place is dry immediately after intercourse. If the lips of the orifice be smooth conception is difficult, for the matter slips off; and if they be thick it is also difficult. But if on digital examination the lips feel somewhat rough and adherent, and if they be likewise thin, then the chances are in favour of conception. Accordingly, if conception be desired, we must bring the parts into such a condition as we have just described; but if on the contrary we want to avoid conception then we must bring about a contrary disposition. Wherefore, since if the parts be smooth conception is prevented, some anoint that part of the womb on which the seed falls with oil of cedar, or with ointment of lead or with frankincense, commingled with olive oil. If the seed remain within for seven days then it is certain that conception has taken place; for it is during that period that what is known as effluxion takes place.
In most cases the menstrual discharge recurs for some time after conception has taken place, its duration being mostly thirty days in the case of a female and about forty days in the case of a male child. After parturition also it is common for the discharge to be withheld for an equal number of days, but not in all cases with equal exactitude. After conception, and when the above-mentioned days are past, the discharge no longer takes its natural course but finds its way to the breasts and turns to milk. The first appearance of milk in the breasts is scant in quantity and so to speak cobwebby or interspersed with little threads. And when conception has taken place, there is apt to be a sort of feeling in the region of the flanks, which in some cases quickly swell up a little, especially in thin persons, and also in the groin.
In the case of male children the first movement usually occurs on the right-hand side of the womb and about the fortieth day, but if the child be a female then on the left-hand side and about the ninetieth day. However, we must by no means assume this to be an accurate statement of fact, for there are many exceptions, in which the movement is manifested on the right-hand side though a female child be coming, and on the left-hand side though the infant be a male. And in short, these and all suchlike phenomena are usually subject to differences that may be summed up as differences of degree.
About this period the embryo begins to resolve into distinct parts, it having hitherto consisted of a fleshlike substance without distinction of parts.
What is called effluxion is a destruction of the embryo within the first week, while abortion occurs up to the fortieth day; and the greater number of such embryos as perish do so within the space of these forty days.
In the case of a male embryo aborted at the fortieth day, if it be placed in cold water it holds together in a sort of membrane, but if it be placed in any other fluid it dissolves and disappears. If the membrane be pulled to bits the embryo is revealed, as big as one of the large kind of ants; and all the limbs are plain to see, including the penis, and the eyes also, which as in other animals are of great size. But the female embryo, if it suffer abortion during the first three months, is as a rule found to be undifferentiated; if however it reach the fourth month it comes to be subdivided and quickly attains further differentiation. In short, while within the womb, the female infant accomplishes the whole development of its parts more slowly than the male, and more frequently than the man-child takes ten months to come to perfection. But after birth, the females pass more quickly than the males through youth and maturity and age; and this is especially true of those that bear many children, as indeed I have already said.
4
When the womb has conceived the seed, straightway in the majority of cases it closes up until seven months are fulfilled; but in the eighth month it opens, and the embryo, if it be fertile, descends in the eighth month. But such embryos as are not fertile but are devoid of breath at eight months old, their mothers do not bring into the world by parturition at eight months, neither does the embryo descend within the womb at that period nor does the womb open. And it is a sign that the embryo is not capable of life if it be formed without the above-named circumstances taking place.
After conception women are prone to a feeling of heaviness in all parts of their bodies, and for instance they experience a sensation of darkness in front of the eyes and suffer also from headache. These symptoms appear sooner or later, sometimes as early as the tenth day, according as the patient be more or less burthened with superfluous humours. Nausea also and sickness affect the most of women, and especially such as those that we have just now mentioned, after the menstrual discharge has ceased and before it is yet turned in the direction of the breasts.
