animals

2010-01-03T14:34:00.001-08:00

Development from the egg takes place similarly with fishes that
are oviparous internally and with fishes that are oviparous
externally; that is to say, the embryo comes at the upper end of the
egg and is enveloped in a membrane, and the eyes, large and spherical,
are the first organs visible. From this circumstance it is plain
that the assertion is untenable which is made by some writers, to wit,
that the young of oviparous fishes are generated like the grubs of
worms; for the opposite phenomena are observed in the case of these
grubs, in that their lower extremities are the larger at the outset,
and that the eyes and the head appear later on. After the egg has been
used up, the young fishes are like tadpoles in shape, and at first,
without taking any nutriment, they grow by sustenance derived from the
juice oozing from the egg; by and by, they are nourished up to full
growth by the river-waters.

2009-06-04T05:04:00.001-07:00

2008-11-26T07:08:00.001-08:00

Oviparous fish as a rule spawn only once a year. The little
phycis or black goby is an exception, as it spawns twice; the male
of the black goby differs from the female as being blacker and
having larger scales.

Fishes then in general produce their young by copulation, and
lay their eggs; but the pipefish, as some call it, when the time of
parturition arrives, bursts in two, and the eggs escape out. For the
fish has a diaphysis or cloven growth under the belly and abdomen
(like the blind snakes), and, after it has spawned by the splitting of
this diaphysis, the sides of the split grow together again.

2008-10-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

Fishes for the most part are divided into males and females, but
one is puzzled to account for the erythrinus and the channa, for
specimens of these species are never caught except in a condition of
pregnancy.

With such fish as pair, eggs are the result of copulation, but
such fish have them also without copulation; and this is shown in
the case of some river-fish, for the minnow has eggs when quite
small,-almost, one may say, as soon as it is born. These fishes shed
their eggs little by little, and, as is stated, the males swallow
the greater part of them, and some portion of them goes to waste in
the water; but such of the eggs as the female deposits on the spawning
beds are saved. If all the eggs were preserved, each species would
be infinite in number. The greater number of these eggs so deposited
are not productive, but only those over which the male sheds the
milt or sperm; for when the female has laid her eggs, the male follows
and sheds its sperm over them, and from all the eggs so besprinkled
young fishes proceed, while the rest are left to their fate.

The same phenomenon is observed in the case of molluscs also;
for in the case of the cuttlefish or sepia, after the female has
deposited her eggs, the male besprinkles them. It is highly probable
that a similar phenomenon takes place in regard to molluscs in
general, though up to the present time the phenomenon has been
observed only in the case of the cuttlefish.

Fishes deposit their eggs close in to shore, the goby close to
stones; and, by the way, the spawn of the goby is flat and crumbly.
Fish in general so deposit their eggs; for the water close in to shore
is warm and is better supplied with food than the outer sea, and
serves as a protection to the spawn against the voracity of the larger
fish. And it is for this reason that in the Euxine most fishes spawn
near the mouth of the river Thermodon, because the locality is
sheltered, genial, and supplied with fresh water.

2008-10-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

Like the human
species it brings forth at all seasons of the year, but especially
at the time when the earliest kids are forthcoming. It conducts its
young ones, when they are about twelve days old, over and over again
during the day down to the sea, accustoming them by slow degrees to
the water. It slips down steep places instead of walking, from the
fact that it cannot steady itself by its feet. It can contract and
draw itself in, for it is fleshy and soft and its bones are gristly.
Owing to the flabbiness of its body it is difficult to kill a seal
by a blow, unless you strike it on the temple. It looks like a cow.
The female in regard to its genital organs resembles the female of the
ray; in all other respects it resembles the female of the human
species.

So much for the phenomena of generation and of parturition in
animals that live in water and are viviparous either internally or
externally.

Oviparous fishes have their womb bifurcate and placed low down, as
was said previously-and, by the way, all scaly fish are oviparous,
as the basse, the mullet, the grey mullet, and the etelis, and all the
so-called white-fish, and all the smooth or slippery fish except the
eel-and their roe is of a crumbling or granular substance. This
appearance is due to the fact that the whole womb of such fishes is
full of eggs, so that in little fishes there seem to be only a
couple of eggs there; for in small fishes the womb is
indistinguishable, from its diminutive size and thin contexture. The
pairing of fishes has been discussed previously.

2008-08-11T03:11:00.000-07:00

The dolphin bears one at a time generally, but occasionally two.
The whale bears one or at the most two, generally two. The porpoise in
this respect resembles the dolphin, and, by the way, it is in form
like a little dolphin, and is found in the Euxine; it differs,
however, from the dolphin as being less in size and broader in the
back; its colour is leaden-black. Many people are of opinion that
the porpoise is a variety of the dolphin.

All creatures that have a blow-hole respire and inspire, for
they are provided with lungs. The dolphin has been seen asleep with
his nose above water, and when asleep he snores.

The dolphin and the porpoise are provided with milk, and
suckle their young. They also take their young, when small, inside
them. The young of the dolphin grow rapidly, being full grown at ten
years of age. Its period of gestation is ten months. It brings forth
its young summer, and never at any other season; (and, singularly
enough, under the Dogstar it disappears for about thirty days). Its
young accompany it for a considerable period; and, in fact, the
creature is remarkable for the strength of its parental affection.
It lives for many years; some are known to have lived for more than
twenty-five, and some for thirty years; the fact is fishermen nick
their tails sometimes and set them adrift again, and by this expedient
their ages are ascertained.

The seal is an amphibious animal: that is to say, it cannot take
in water, but breathes and sleeps and brings forth on dry land-only
close to the shore-as being an animal furnished with feet; it
spends, however, the greater part of its time in the sea and derives
its food from it, so that it must be classed in the category of marine
animals. It is viviparous by immediate conception and brings forth its
young alive, and exhibits an after-birth and all else just like a ewe.
It bears one or two at a time, and three at the most. It has two
teats, and suckles its young like a quadruped.

2008-08-07T05:33:00.000-07:00

Cartilaginous fishes come out from the main seas and deep waters
towards the shore and there bring forth their young, and they do so
for the sake of warmth and by way of protection for their young.

Observations would lead to the general rule that no one
variety of fish pairs with another variety. The angel-fish, however,
and the batus or skate appear to pair with one another; for there is a
fish called the rhinobatus, with the head and front parts of the skate
and the after parts of the rhine or angel-fish, just as though it were
made up of both fishes together.

Sharks then and their congeners, as the fox-shark and the
dog-fish, and the flat fishes, such as the electric ray, the ray,
the smooth skate, and the trygon, are first oviparous and then
viviparous in the way above mentioned, (as are also the saw-fish and
the ox-ray.)

The dolphin, the whale, and all the rest of the Cetacea, all, that
is to say, that are provided with a blow-hole instead of gills, are
viviparous. That is to say, no one of all these fishes is ever seen to
be supplied with eggs, but directly with an embryo from whose
differentiation comes the fish, just as in the case of mankind and the
viviparous quadrupeds.

2008-08-01T12:14:00.001-07:00

At the breeding season the sperm-ducts of the male are filled with
sperm, so much so that if they be squeezed the sperm flows out
spontaneously as a white fluid; the ducts are bifurcate, and start
from the midriff and the great vein. About this period the sperm-ducts
of the male are quite distinct (from the womb of the female) but at
any other than the actual breeding time their distinctness is not
obvious to a non-expert. The fact is that in certain fishes at certain
times these organs are imperceptible, as was stated regarding the
testicles of birds.

Among other distinctions observed between the thoric ducts and the
womb-ducts is the circumstance that the thoric ducts are attached to
the loins, while the womb-ducts move about freely and are attached
by a thin membrane. The particulars regarding the thoric ducts may
be studied by a reference to the diagrams in my treatise on Anatomy.

Cartilaginous fishes are capable of superfoetation, and their
period of gestation is six months at the longest. The so-called starry
dogfish bears young the most frequently; in other words it bears twice
a month. The breeding season is in the month of Maemacterion. The
dog-fish as a general rule bear twice in the year, with the
exception of the little dog-fish, which bears only once a year. Some
of them bring forth in the springtime. The rhine, or angel-fish, bears
its first brood in the springtime, and its second in the autumn, about
the winter setting of the Pleiads; the second brood is the stronger of
the two. The electric ray brings forth in the late autumn.

2008-07-30T01:31:00.001-07:00

All cartilaginous fishes have at one and the same time eggs
above close to the midriff (some larger, some smaller), in
considerable numbers, and also embryos lower down. And this
circumstance leads many to suppose that fishes of this species pair
and bear young every month, inasmuch as they do not produce all
their young at once, but now and again and over a lengthened period.
But such eggs as have come down below within the womb are
simultaneously ripened and completed in growth.

Dog-fish in general can extrude and take in again their young,
as can also the angel-fish and the electric ray-and, by the way, a
large electric ray has been seen with about eighty embryos inside
it-but the spiny dogfish is an exception to the rule, being
prevented by the spine of the young fish from so doing. Of the flat
cartilaginous fish, the trygon and the ray cannot extrude and take
in again in consequence of the roughness of the tails of the young.
The batrachus or fishing-frog also is unable to take in its young
owing to the size of the head and the prickles; and, by the way, as
was previously remarked, it is the only one of these fishes that is
not viviparous.

So much for the varieties of the cartilaginous species and for
their modes of generation from the egg.

2008-07-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

The so-called smooth shark has its eggs in betwixt the wombs
like the dog-fish; these eggs shift into each of the two horns of
the womb and descend, and the young develop with the navel-string
attached to the womb, so that, as the egg-substance gets used up,
the embryo is sustained to all appearance just as in the case of
quadrupeds. The navel-string is long and adheres to the under part
of the womb (each navel-string being attached as it were by a sucker),
and also to the centre of the embryo in the place where the liver is
situated. If the embryo be cut open, even though it has the
egg-substance no longer, the food inside is egg-like in appearance.
Each embryo, as in the case of quadrupeds, is provided with a
chorion and separate membranes. When young the embryo has its head
upwards, but downwards when it gets strong and is completed in form.
Males are generated on the left-hand side of the womb, and females
on the right-hand side, and males and females on the same side
together. If the embryo be cut open, then, as with quadrupeds, such
internal organs as it is furnished with, as for instance the liver,
are found to be large and supplied with blood.

2008-07-08T04:08:00.000-07:00

As regards the shape of the womb, the reader is referred to my
treatise on Anatomy. The womb, however, is diverse in diverse
fishes, as for instance in the sharks as compared one with another
or as compared with the skate. That is to say, in some sharks the eggs
adhere in the middle of the womb round about the backbone, as has been
stated, and this is the case with the dog-fish; as the eggs grow
they shift their place; and since the womb is bifurcate and adheres to
the midriff, as in the rest of similar creatures, the eggs pass into
one or other of the two compartments. This womb and the womb of the
other sharks exhibit, as you go a little way off from the midriff,
something resembling white breasts, which never make their
appearance unless there be conception.

Dog-fish and skate have a kind of egg-shell, in the which is
found an egg-like liquid. The shape of the egg-shell resembles the
tongue of a bagpipe, and hair-like ducts are attached to the shell.
With the dog-fish which is called by some the 'dappled shark', the
young are born when the shell-formation breaks in pieces and falls
out; with the ray, after it has laid the egg the shell-formation
breaks up and the young move out. The spiny dog-fish has its close
to the midriff above the breast like formations; when the egg
descends, as soon as it gets detached the young is born. The mode of
generation is the same in the case of the fox-shark.

2008-06-23T00:29:00.001-07:00

The navel-string is attached a little way below the aperture
of the belly. When the creatures are young the navel-string is long,
but as they grow it diminishes in size; at length it gets small and
becomes incorporated, as was described in the case of birds. The
embryo and the egg are enveloped by a common membrane, and just
under this is another membrane that envelops the embryo by itself; and
in between the two membranes is a liquid. The food inside the
stomach of the little fishes resembles that inside the stomach of
young chicks, and is partly white and partly yellow.

2008-06-19T02:39:00.001-07:00

Development from the egg in fishes differs from that in birds in
this respect, that it does not exhibit that one of the two
navel-strings that leads off to the membrane that lies close under the
shell, while it does exhibit that one of the two that in the case of
birds leads off to the yolk. In a general way the rest of the
development from the egg onwards is identical in birds and fishes.
That is to say, development takes place at the upper part of the
egg, and the veins extend in like manner, at first from the heart; and
at first the head, the eyes, and the upper parts are largest; and as
the creature grows the egg-substance decreases and eventually
disappears, and becomes absorbed within the embryo, just as takes
place with the yolk in birds.

So much for the conception and generation of birds.

2008-06-15T00:55:00.001-07:00

It has been previously stated that fishes are not all oviparous.
Fishes of the cartilaginous genus are viviparous; the rest are
oviparous. And cartilaginous fishes are first oviparous internally and
subsequently viviparous; they rear the embryos internally, the
batrachus or fishing-frog being an exception.

Fishes also, as was above stated, are provided with wombs, and
wombs of diverse kinds. The oviparous genera have wombs bifurcate in
shape and low down in position; the cartilaginous genus have wombs
shaped like those of O birds. The womb, however, in the
cartilaginous fishes differs in this respect from the womb of birds,
that with some cartilaginous fishes the eggs do not settle close to
the diaphragm but middle-ways along the backbone, and as they grow
they shift their position.

The egg with all fishes is not of two colours within but is of
even hue; and the colour is nearer to white than to yellow, and that
both when the young is inside it and previously as well.

2008-06-09T23:04:00.001-07:00

Peafowl live for about twenty-five years, breed about the third
year, and at the same time take on their spangled plumage. They
hatch their eggs within thirty days or rather more. The peahen lays
but once a year, and lays twelve eggs, or may be a slightly lesser
number: she does not lay all the eggs there and then one after the
other, but at intervals of two or three days. Such as lay for the
first time lay about eight eggs. The peahen lays wind-eggs. They
pair in the spring; and laying begins immediately after pairing. The
bird moults when the earliest trees are shedding their leaves, and
recovers its plumage when the same trees are recovering their foliage.
People that rear peafowl put the eggs under the barn-door hen, owing
to the fact that when the peahen is brooding over them the peacock
attacks her and tries to trample on them; owing to this circumstance
some birds of wild varieties run away from the males and lay their
eggs and brood in solitude. Only two eggs are put under a barn-door
hen, for she could not brood over and hatch a large number. They
take every precaution, by supplying her with food, to prevent her
going off the eggs and discontinuing the brooding.

With male birds about pairing time the testicles are obviously
larger than at other times, and this is conspicuously the case with
the more salacious birds, such as the barn-door cock and the cock
partridge; the peculiarity is less conspicuous in such birds as are
intermittent in regard to pairing.

2008-06-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

With most birds, as has been said of the pigeon, the hatching is
carried on by the male and the female in turns: with some birds,
however, the male only sits long enough to allow the female to provide
herself with food. In the goose tribe the female alone incubates,
and after once sitting on the eggs she continues brooding until they
are hatched.

The nests of all marsh-birds are built in districts fenny and well
supplied with grass; consequently, the mother-bird while sitting quiet
on her eggs can provide herself with food without having to submit
to absolute fasting.

With the crow also the female alone broods, and broods
throughout the whole period; the male bird supports the female,
bringing her food and feeding her. The female of the ring-dove
begins to brood in the afternoon and broods through the entire night
until breakfast-time of the following day; the male broods during
the rest of the time. Partridges build a nest in two compartments; the
male broods on the one and the female on the other. After hatching,
each of the parent birds rears its brood. But the male, when he
first takes his young out of the nest, treads them.

2008-05-22T02:21:00.001-07:00

The cuckoo is said by some to be a hawk transformed, because at
the time of the cuckoo's coming, the hawk, which it resembles, is
never seen; and indeed it is only for a few days that you will see
hawks about when the cuckoo's note sounds early in the season. The
cuckoo appears only for a short time in summer, and in winter
disappears. The hawk has crooked talons, which the cuckoo has not;
neither with regard to the head does the cuckoo resemble the hawk.
In point of fact, both as regards the head and the claws it more
resembles the pigeon. However, in colour and in colour alone it does
resemble the hawk, only that the markings of the hawk are striped, and
of the cuckoo mottled. And, by the way, in size and flight it
resembles the smallest of the hawk tribe, which bird disappears as a
rule about the time of the appearance of the cuckoo, though the two
have been seen simultaneously. The cuckoo has been seen to be preyed
on by the hawk; and this never happens between birds of the same
species. They say no one has ever seen the young of the cuckoo. The
bird eggs, but does not build a nest. Sometimes it lays its eggs in
the nest of a smaller bird after first devouring the eggs of this
bird; it lays by preference in the nest of the ringdove, after first
devouring the eggs of the pigeon. (It occasionally lays two, but
usually one.) It lays also in the nest of the hypolais, and the
hypolais hatches and rears the brood. It is about this time that the
bird becomes fat and palatable. (The young of hawks also get palatable
and fat. One species builds a nest in the wilderness and on sheer
and inaccessible cliffs.)

2008-05-19T02:22:00.000-07:00

The hatching period is about the same for the larger birds, such
as the goose and the great bustard; for the middle-sized birds it
extends over about twenty days, as in the case of the kite and the
hawk. The kite in general lays two eggs, but occasionally rears
three young ones. The so-called aegolius at times rears four. It is
not true that, as some aver, the raven lays only two eggs; it lays a
larger number. It broods for about twenty days and then extrudes its
young. Other birds perform the same operation; at all events mother
birds that lay several eggs often extrude one of their young.

Birds of the eagle species are not alike in the treatment of their
young. The white-tailed eagle is cross, the black eagle is
affectionate in the feeding of the young; though, by the way, all
birds of prey, when their brood is rather forward in being able to
fly, beat and extrude them from the nest. The majority of birds
other than birds of prey, as has been said, also act in this manner,
and after feeding their young take no further care of them; but the
crow is an exception. This bird for a considerable time takes charge
of her young; for, even when her young can fly, she flies alongside of
them and supplies them with food.

2008-05-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

The vulture builds its nest on inaccessible cliffs; for which
reason its nest and young are rarely seen. And therefore Herodorus,
father of Bryson the Sophist, declares that vultures belong to some
foreign country unknown to us, stating as a proof of the assertion
that no one has ever seen a vulture's nest, and also that vultures
in great numbers make a sudden appearance in the rear of armies.
However, difficult as it is to get a sight of it, a vulture's nest has
been seen. The vulture lays two eggs.

(Carnivorous birds in general are observed to lay but once a
year. The swallow is the only carnivorous bird that builds a nest
twice. If you prick out the eyes of swallow chicks while they are
yet young, the birds will get well again and will see by and by.)

The eagle lays three eggs and hatches two of them, as it is said
in the verses ascribed to Musaeus:

That lays three, hatches two, and cares for one.

This is the case in most instances, though occasionally a brood of
three has been observed. As the young ones grow, the mother becomes
wearied with feeding them and extrudes one of the pair from the
nest. At the same time the bird is said to abstain from food, to avoid
harrying the young of wild animals. That is to say, its wings blanch,
and for some days its talons get turned awry. It is in consequence
about this time cross-tempered to its own young. The phene is said
to rear the young one that has been expelled the nest. The eagle
broods for about thirty days.

2008-05-02T03:23:00.000-07:00

The pigeon, as a rule, lays a male and a female egg, and generally
lays the male egg first; after laying it allows a day's interval to
ensue and then lays the second egg. The male takes its turn of sitting
during the daytime; the female sits during the night. The first-laid
egg is hatched and brought to birth within twenty days; and the mother
bird pecks a hole in the egg the day before she hatches it out. The
two parent birds brood for some time over the chicks in the way in
which they brooded previously over the eggs. In all connected with the
rearing of the young the female parent is more cross-tempered than the
male, as is the case with most animals after parturition. The hens lay
as many as ten times in the year; occasional instances have been known
of their laying eleven times, and in Egypt they actually lay twelve
times. The pigeon, male and female, couples within the year; in
fact, it couples when only six months old. Some assert that
ringdoves and turtle-doves pair and procreate when only three months
old, and instance their superabundant numbers by way of proof of the
assertion. The hen-pigeon carries her eggs fourteen days; for as
many more days the parent birds hatch the eggs; by the end of
another fourteen days the chicks are so far capable of flight as to be
overtaken with difficulty. (The ring-dove, according to all
accounts, lives up to forty years. The partridge lives over
sixteen.) (After one brood the pigeon is ready for another within
thirty days.)

2008-04-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

Birds of the pigeon kind, such as the ringdove and the
turtle-dove, lay two eggs at a time; that is to say, they do so as a
general rule, and they never lay more than three. The pigeon, as has
been said, lays at all seasons; the ring-dove and the turtle-dove
lay in the springtime, and they never lay more than twice in the
same season. The hen-bird lays the second pair of eggs when the
first pair happens to have been destroyed, for many of the hen-pigeons
destroy the first brood. The hen-pigeon, as has been said,
occasionally lays three eggs, but it never rears more than two chicks,
and sometimes rears only one; and the odd one is always a wind-egg.

Very few birds propagate within their first year. All birds,
after once they have begun laying, keep on having eggs, though in
the case of some birds it is difficult to detect the fact from the
minute size of the creature.

2008-04-19T01:01:00.000-07:00

During the period above referred to the chick
sleeps, wakes up, makes a move and looks up and Chirps; and the
heart and the navel together palpitate as though the creature were
respiring. So much as to generation from the egg in the case of birds.

Birds lay some eggs that are unfruitful, even eggs that are
the result of copulation, and no life comes from such eggs by
incubation; and this phenomenon is observed especially with pigeons.

Twin eggs have two yolks. In some twin eggs a thin partition
of white intervenes to prevent the yolks mixing with each other, but
some twin eggs are unprovided with such partition, and the yokes run
into one another. There are some hens that lay nothing but twin
eggs, and in their case the phenomenon regarding the yolks has been
observed. For instance, a hen has been known to lay eighteen eggs, and
to hatch twins out of them all, except those that were wind-eggs;
the rest were fertile (though, by the way, one of the twins is
always bigger than the other), but the eighteenth was abnormal or
monstrous.

2008-04-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

About the twentieth day, if you open the egg and touch the
chick, it moves inside and chirps; and it is already coming to be
covered with down, when, after the twentieth day is ast, the chick
begins to break the shell. The head is situated over the right leg
close to the flank, and the wing is placed over the head; and about
this time is plain to be seen the membrane resembling an after-birth
that comes next after the outermost membrane of the shell, into
which membrane the one of the navel-strings was described as leading
(and, by the way, the chick in its entirety is now within it), and
so also is the other membrane resembling an after-birth, namely that
surrounding the yolk, into which the second navel-string was described
as leading; and both of them were described as being connected with
the heart and the big vein. At this conjuncture the navel-string
that leads to the outer afterbirth collapses and becomes detached from
the chick, and the membrane that leads into the yolk is fastened on to
the thin gut of the creature, and by this time a considerable amount
of the yolk is inside the chick and a yellow sediment is in its
stomach. About this time it discharges residuum in the direction of
the outer after-birth, and has residuum inside its stomach; and the
outer residuum is white (and there comes a white substance inside). By
and by the yolk, diminishing gradually in size, at length becomes
entirely used up and comprehended within the chick (so that, ten
days after hatching, if you cut open the chick, a small remnant of the
yolk is still left in connexion with the gut), but it is detached from
the navel, and there is nothing in the interval between, but it has
been used up entirely.

2008-04-07T03:40:00.000-07:00

The disposition of the several constituent parts is as
follows. First and outermost comes the membrane of the egg, not that
of the shell, but underneath it. Inside this membrane is a white
liquid; then comes the chick, and a membrane round about it,
separating it off so as to keep the chick free from the liquid; next
after the chick comes the yolk, into which one of the two veins was
described as leading, the other one leading into the enveloping
white substance. (A membrane with a liquid resembling serum envelops
the entire structure. Then comes another membrane right round the
embryo, as has been described, separating it off against the liquid.
Underneath this comes the yolk, enveloped in another membrane (into
which yolk proceeds the navel-string that leads from the heart and the
big vein), so as to keep the embryo free of both liquids.)

2008-04-02T03:32:00.000-07:00

3

When the egg is now ten days old the chick and all its parts are
distinctly visible. The head is still larger than the rest of its
body, and the eyes larger than the head, but still devoid of vision.
The eyes, if removed about this time, are found to be larger than
beans, and black; if the cuticle be peeled off them there is a white
and cold liquid inside, quite glittering in the sunlight, but there is
no hard substance whatsoever. Such is the condition of the head and
eyes. At this time also the larger internal organs are visible, as
also the stomach and the arrangement of the viscera; and veins that
seem to proceed from the heart are now close to the navel. From the
navel there stretch a pair of veins; one towards the membrane that
envelops the yolk (and, by the way, the yolk is now liquid, or more so
than is normal), and the other towards that membrane which envelops
collectively the membrane wherein the chick lies, the membrane of
the yolk, and the intervening liquid. (For, as the chick grows, little
by little one part of the yolk goes upward, and another part downward,
and the white liquid is between them; and the white of the egg is
underneath the lower part of the yolk, as it was at the outset.) On
the tenth day the white is at the extreme outer surface, reduced in
amount, glutinous, firm in substance, and sallow in colour.

2008-03-27T03:40:00.000-07:00

Generation from the egg proceeds in an identical manner with all
birds, but the full periods from conception to birth differ, as has
been said. With the common hen after three days and three nights there
is the first indication of the embryo; with larger birds the
interval being longer, with smaller birds shorter. Meanwhile the
yolk comes into being, rising towards the sharp end, where the
primal element of the egg is situated, and where the egg gets hatched;
and the heart appears, like a speck of blood, in the white of the egg.
This point beats and moves as though endowed with life, and from it
two vein-ducts with blood in them trend in a convoluted course (as the
egg substance goes on growing, towards each of the two circumjacent
integuments); and a membrane carrying bloody fibres now envelops the
yolk, leading off from the vein-ducts. A little afterwards the body is
differentiated, at first very small and white. The head is clearly
distinguished, and in it the eyes, swollen out to a great extent. This
condition of the eyes lat on for a good while, as it is only by
degrees that they diminish in size and collapse. At the outset the
under portion of the body appears insignificant in comparison with the
upper portion. Of the two ducts that lead from the heart, the one
proceeds towards the circumjacent integument, and the other, like a
navel-string, towards the yolk. The life-element of the chick is in
the white of the egg, and the nutriment comes through the navel-string
out of the yolk.

2008-03-25T03:53:00.000-07:00

The generation of the egg after copulation and the generation of
the chick from the subsequent hatching of the egg are not brought
about within equal periods for all birds, but differ as to time
according to the size of the parent-birds. The egg of the common hen
after copulation sets and matures in ten days a general rule; the
egg of the pigeon in a somewhat lesser period. Pigeons have the
faculty of holding back the egg at the very moment of parturition;
if a hen pigeon be put about by any one, for instance if it be
disturbed on its nest, or have a feather plucked out, or sustain any
other annoyance or disturbance, then even though she had made up her
mind to lay she can keep the egg back in abeyance. A singular
phenomenon is observed in pigeons with regard to pairing: that is,
they kiss one another just when the male is on the point of mounting
the female, and without this preliminary the male would decline to
perform his function. With the older males the preliminary kiss is
only given to begin with, and subsequently sequently he mounts without
previously kissing; with younger males the preliminary is never
omitted. Another singularity in these birds is that the hens tread one
another when a cock is not forthcoming, after kissing one another just
as takes place in the normal pairing. Though they do not impregnate
one another they lay more eggs under these than under ordinary
circumstances; no chicks, however, result therefrom, but all such eggs
are wind-eggs.

2008-03-19T05:21:00.000-07:00

The yolk and the white are diverse not only in colour but also
in properties. Thus, the yolk congeals under the influence of cold,
whereas the white instead of congealing is inclined rather to liquefy.
Again, the white stiffens under the influence of fire, whereas the
yolk does not stiffen; but, unless it be burnt through and through, it
remains soft, and in point of fact is inclined to set or to harden
more from the boiling than from the roasting of the egg. The yolk
and the white are separated by a membrane from one another. The
so-called 'hail-stones', or treadles, that are found at the
extremity of the yellow in no way contribute towards generation, as
some erroneously suppose: they are two in number, one below and the
other above. If you take out of the shells a number of yolks and a
number of whites and pour them into a sauce pan and boil them slowly
over a low fire, the yolks will gather into the centre and the
whites will set all around them.

Young hens are the first to lay, and they do so at the beginning
of spring and lay more eggs than the older hens, but the eggs of the
younger hens are comparatively small. As a general rule, if hens get
no brooding they pine and sicken. After copulation hens shiver and
shake themselves, and often kick rubbish about all round them-and
this, by the way, they do sometimes after laying-whereas pigeons trail
their rumps on the ground, and geese dive under the water.
Conception of the true egg and conformation of the wind-egg take place
rapidly with most birds; as for instance with the hen-partridge when
in heat. The fact is that, when she stands to windward and within
scent of the male, she conceives, and becomes useless for decoy
purposes: for, by the way, the partridge appears to have a very
acute sense of smell.

2008-03-17T02:35:00.000-07:00

Such as affirm that wind-eggs are the residua of eggs previously
begotten from copulation are mistaken in this assertion, for we have
cases well authenticated where chickens of the common hen and goose
have laid wind-eggs without ever having been subjected to
copulation. Wind-eggs are smaller, less palatable, and more liquid
than true eggs, and are produced in greater numbers. When they are put
under the mother bird, the liquid contents never coagulate, but both
the yellow and the white remain as they were. Wind-eggs are laid by
a number of birds: as for instance by the common hen, the hen
partridge, the hen pigeon, the peahen, the goose, and the vulpanser.
Eggs are hatched under brooding hens more rapidly in summer than in
winter; that is to say, hens hatch in eighteen days in summer, but
occasionally in winter take as many as twenty-five. And by the way for
brooding purposes some birds make better mothers than others. If it
thunders while a hen-bird is brooding, the eggs get addled.
Wind-eggs that are called by some cynosura and uria are produced
chiefly in summer. Wind-eggs are called by some zephyr-eggs, because
at spring-time hen-birds are observed to inhale the breezes; they do
the same if they be stroked in a peculiar way by hand. Wind-eggs can
turn into fertile eggs, and eggs due to previous copulation can change
breed, if before the change of the yellow to the white the hen that
contains wind-eggs, or eggs begotten of copulation be trodden by
another cock-bird. Under these circumstances the wind-eggs turn into
fertile eggs, and the previously impregnated eggs follow the breed
of the impregnator; but if the latter impregnation takes place
during the change of the yellow to the white, then no change in the
egg takes place: the wind-egg does not become a true egg, and the true
egg does not take on the breed of the latter impregnator. If when
the egg-substance is small copulation be intermitted, the previously
existing egg-substance exhibits no increase; but if the hen be again
submitted to the male the increase in size proceeds with rapidity.

2008-03-13T05:07:00.000-07:00

Eggs are not symmetrically shaped at both ends: in other
words, one end is comparatively sharp, and the other end is
comparatively blunt; and it is the latter end that protrudes first
at the time of laying. Long and pointed eggs are female; those that
are round, or more rounded at the narrow end, are male. Eggs are
hatched by the incubation of the mother-bird. In some cases, as in
Egypt, they are hatched spontaneously in the ground, by being buried
in dung heaps. A story is told of a toper in Syracuse, how he used
to put eggs into the ground under his rush-mat and to keep on drinking
until he hatched them. Instances have occurred of eggs being deposited
in warm vessels and getting hatched spontaneously.

The sperm of birds, as of animals in general, is white. After
the female has submitted to the male, she draws up the sperm to
underneath her midriff. At first it is little in size and white in
colour; by and by it is red, the colour of blood; as it grows, it
becomes pale and yellow all over. When at length it is getting ripe
for hatching, it is subject to differentiation of substance, and the
yolk gathers together within and the white settles round it on the
outside. When the full time is come, the egg detaches itself and
protrudes, changing from soft to hard with such temporal exactitude
that, whereas it is not hard during the process of protrusion, it
hardens immediately after the process is completed: that is if there
be no concomitant pathological circumstances. Cases have occurred
where substances resembling the egg at a critical point of its
growth-that is, when it is yellow all over, as the yolk is
subsequently-have been found in the cock when cut open, underneath his
midriff, just where the hen has her eggs; and these are entirely
yellow in appearance and of the same size as ordinary eggs. Such
phenomena are regarded as unnatural and portentous.

2008-03-11T01:50:00.000-07:00

Birds in general lay their eggs in nests, but such as are
disqualified for flight, as the partridge and the quail, do not lay
them in nests but on the ground, and cover them over with loose
material. The same is the case with the lark and the tetrix. These
birds hatch in sheltered places; but the bird called merops in
Boeotia, alone of all birds, burrows into holes in the ground and
hatches there.

Thrushes, like swallows, build nests of clay, on high trees, and
build them in rows all close together, so that from their continuity
the structure resembles a necklace of nests. Of all birds that hatch
for themselves the hoopoe is the only one that builds no nest
whatever; it gets into the hollow of the trunk of a tree, and lays its
eggs there without making any sort of nest. The circus builds either
under a dwelling-roof or on cliffs. The tetrix, called ourax in
Athens, builds neither on the ground nor on trees, but on low-lying
shrubs.

The egg in the case of all birds alike is hard-shelled, if it be
the produce of copulation and be laid by a healthy hen-for some hens
lay soft eggs. The interior of the egg is of two colours, and the
white part is outside and the yellow part within.

The eggs of birds that frequent rivers and marshes differ from
those of birds that live on dry land; that is to say, the eggs of
waterbirds have comparatively more of the yellow or yolk and less of
the white. Eggs vary in colour according to their kind. Some eggs
are white, as those of the pigeon and of the partridge; others are
yellowish, as the eggs of marsh birds; in some cases the eggs are
mottled, as the eggs of the guinea-fowl and the pheasant; while the
eggs of the kestrel are red, like vermilion.

2008-03-04T04:53:00.000-08:00

So much for the generative processes in snakes and insects, and
also in oviparous quadrupeds. Birds without exception lay eggs, but
the pairing season and the times of parturition are not alike for all.
Some birds couple and lay at almost any time in the year, as for
instance the barn-door hen and the pigeon: the former of these
coupling and laying during the entire year, with the exception of
the month before and the month after the winter solstice. Some hens,
even in the high breeds, lay a large quantity of eggs before brooding,
amounting to as many as sixty; and, by the way, the higher breeds
are less prolific than the inferior ones. The Adrian hens are
small-sized, but they lay every day; they are cross-tempered, and
often kill their chickens; they are of all colours. Some
domesticated hens lay twice a day; indeed, instances have been known
where hens, after exhibiting extreme fecundity, have died suddenly.
Hens, then, lay eggs, as has been stated, at all times
indiscriminately; the pigeon, the ring-dove, the turtle-dove, and
the stock-dove lay twice a year, and the pigeon actually lays ten
times a year. The great majority of birds lay during the
spring-time. Some birds are prolific, and prolific in either of two
ways-either by laying often, as the pigeon, or by laying many eggs
at a sitting, as the barn-door hen. All birds of prey, or birds with
crooked talons, are unprolific, except the kestrel: this bird is the
most prolific of birds of prey; as many as four eggs have been
observed in the nest, and occasionally it lays even more.

2008-02-25T02:41:00.000-08:00

Lizards and crocodiles, terrestrial and fluvial, lay eggs on land.
The eggs of lizards hatch spontaneously on land, for the lizard does
not live on into the next year; in fact, the life of the animal is
said not to exceed six months. The river-crocodile lays a number of
eggs, sixty at the most, white in colour, and broods over them for
sixty days: for, by the way, the creature is very long-lived. And
the disproportion is more marked in this animal than in any other
between the smallness of the original egg and the huge size of the
full-grown animal. For the egg is not larger than that of the goose,
and the young crocodile is small, answering to the egg in size, but
the full-grown animal attains the length of twenty-six feet; in
fact, it is actually stated that the animal goes on growing to the end
of its days.

2008-02-22T13:25:00.000-08:00

2008-02-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

The fruit of the wild fig contains the psen, or fig-wasp. This
creature is a grub at first; but in due time the husk peels off and
the psen leaves the husk behind it and flies away, and enters into the
fruit of the fig-tree through its orifice, and causes the fruit not to
drop off; and with a view to this phenomenon, country folk are in
the habit of tying wild figs on to fig-trees, and of planting wild
fig-trees near domesticated ones.

2008-01-12T10:22:00.001-08:00

There is a grub entitled the 'faggot-bearer', as strange a
creature as is known. Its head projects outside its shell, mottled
in colour, and its feet are near the end or apex, as is the case
with grubs in general; but the rest of its body is cased in a tunic as
it were of spider's web, and there are little dry twigs about it, that
look as though they had stuck by accident to the creature as it went
walking about. But these twig-like formations are naturally
connected with the tunic, for just as the shell is with the body of
the snail so is the whole superstructure with our grub; and they do
not drop off, but can only be torn off, as though they were all of a
piece with him, and the removal of the tunic is as fatal to this
grub as the removal of the shell would be to the snail. In course of
time this grub becomes a chrysalis, as is the case with the
silkworm, and lives in a motionless condition. But as yet it is not
known into what winged condition it is transformed.

2007-12-15T04:12:00.001-08:00

Other animalcules besides these are generated, as we have
already remarked, some in wool or in articles made of wool, as the ses
or clothes-moth. And these animalcules come in greater numbers if
the woollen substances are dusty; and they come in especially large
numbers if a spider be shut up in the cloth or wool, for the
creature drinks up any moisture that may be there, and dries up the
woollen substance. This grub is found also in men's clothes.

A creature is also found in wax long laid by, just as in wood,
and it is the smallest of animalcules and is white in colour, and is
designated the acari or mite. In books also other animalcules are
found, some resembling the grubs found in garments, and some
resembling tailless scorpions, but very small. As a general rule we
may state that such animalcules are found in practically anything,
both in dry things that are becoming moist and in moist things that
are drying, provided they contain the conditions of life.

2007-11-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

Cattle suffer both from lice and from ticks. Sheep and goats breed
ticks, but do not breed lice. Pigs breed lice large and hard. In
dogs are found the flea peculiar to the animal, the Cynoroestes. In
all animals that are subject to lice, the latter originate from the
animals themselves. Moreover, in animals that bathe at all, lice are
more than usually abundant when they change the water in which they
bathe.

In the sea, lice are found on fishes, but they are generated not
out of the fish but out of slime; and they resemble multipedal
wood-lice, only that their tail is flat. Sea-lice are uniform in shape
and universal in locality, and are particularly numerous on the body
of the red mullet. And all these insects are multipedal and devoid
of blood.

The parasite that feeds on the tunny is found in the region of
the fins; it resembles a scorpion, and is about the size of a
spider. In the seas between Cyrene and Egypt there is a fish that
attends on the dolphin, which is called the 'dolphin's louse'. This
fish gets exceedingly fat from enjoying an abundance of food while the
dolphin is out in pursuit of its prey.

2007-11-24T01:36:00.000-08:00

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

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

When lice are coming there is a kind of small eruption
visible, unaccompanied by any discharge of purulent matter; and, if
you prick an animal when in this condition at the spot of eruption,
the lice jump out. In some men the appearance of lice is a disease, in
cases where the body is surcharged with moisture; and, indeed, men
have been known to succumb to this louse-disease, as Alcman the poet
and the Syrian Pherecydes are said to have done. Moreover, in
certain diseases lice appear in great abundance.

There is also a species of louse called the 'wild louse', and
this is harder than the ordinary louse, and there is exceptional
difficulty in getting the skin rid of it. Boys' heads are apt to be
lousy, but men's in less degree; and women are more subject to lice
than men. But, whenever people are troubled with lousy heads, they are
less than ordinarily troubled with headache. And lice are generated in
other animals than man. For birds are infested with them; and
pheasants, unless they clean themselves in the dust, are actually
destroyed by them. All other winged animals that are furnished with
feathers are similarly infested, and all hair-coated creatures also,
with the single exception of the ass, which is infested neither with
lice nor with ticks.

2007-11-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

2007-11-12T03:34:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

2007-11-07T00:18:00.001-08:00

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

Grasshoppers

2007-11-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

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

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

2007-11-02T06:54:00.001-07:00

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

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

2007-11-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

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

The land-scorpion also lays a number of egg shaped grubs, and
broods over them. When the hatching is completed, the parent animal,
as happens with the parent spider, is ejected and put to death by
the young ones; for very often the young ones are about eleven in
number.
Spiders in all cases copulate in the way above mentioned, and
generate at first small grubs. And these grubs metamorphose in their
entirety, and not partially, into spiders; for, by the way, the
grubs are round-shaped at the outset. And the spider, when it lays its
eggs, broods over them, and in three days the eggs or grubs take
definite shape.

2007-10-29T06:42:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-25T13:14:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-24T09:48:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

2007-10-23T08:31:00.001-07:00

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

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

The bee

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

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

Whenever the spring-time

2007-10-19T03:46:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With regard

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

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

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

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

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

The sepia

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

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

2007-09-09T23:04:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

Molluscs,

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

2007-09-02T22:32:00.001-07:00

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

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

It lays its eggs

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then, in this manner, and after hatching
them for about twenty days it rids itself of them all in one solid
lump, as is quite plain from outside. And out of these eggs crawfish
form in about fifteen days, and these crawfish are caught at times
less then a finger's breadth, or seven-tenths of an inch, in length.
The animal, then, lays its eggs before the middle of September, and
after the middle of that month throws off its eggs in a lump. With the
humped carids or prawns the time for gestation is four months or
thereabouts. Crawfish are found in rough and rocky places, lobsters in smooth
places, and neither crawfish nor lobsters are found in muddy ones; and
this accounts for the fact that lobsters are found in the Hellespont
and on the coast of Thasos, and crawfish in the neighbourhood of
Sigeum and Mount Athos. Fishermen, accordingly, when they want to
catch these various creatures out at sea, take bearings on the beach
and elsewhere that tell them where the ground at the bottom is stony
and where soft with slime. In winter and spring these animals keep
in near to land, in summer they keep in deep water; thus at various
times seeking respectively for warmth or coolness.

Of crustaceans,

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

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

There is a particular

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

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

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

The sponge breeds parasites,

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

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

Sponges

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

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

Moreover

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

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

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

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

Shell-fish

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

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

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

As a general rule,

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

The mussel also constructs a honeycomb.

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

The same phenomena

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

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And the qualities, by the way, of this organ are
astringent. It is after the murex has constructed the honeycomb that
the bloom is at its worst. Small specimens they break in pieces,
shells and all, for it is no easy matter to extract the organ; but
in dealing with the larger ones they first strip off the shell and
then abstract the bloom. For this purpose the neck and mecon are
separated, for the bloom lies in between them, above the so-called
stomach; hence the necessity of separating them in abstracting the
bloom. Fishermen are anxious always to break the animal in pieces
while it is yet alive, for, if it die before the process is completed,
it vomits out the bloom; and for this reason the fishermen keep the
animals in creels, until they have collected a sufficient number and
can attend to them at their leisure. Fishermen in past times used
not to lower creels or attach them to the bait, so that very often the
animal got dropped off in the pulling up; at present, however, they
always attach a basket, so that if the animal fall off it is not lost.
The animal is more inclined to slip off the bait if it be full inside;
if it be empty it is difficult to shake it off. Such are the phenomena
connected with the porphyra or murex.

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There are many species of the purple murex; and some are
large, as those found off Sigeum and Lectum; others are small, as
those found in the Euripus, and on the coast of Caria. And those
that are found in bays are large and rough; in most of them the
peculiar bloom from which their name is derived is dark to
blackness, in others it is reddish and small in size; some of the
large ones weigh upwards of a mina apiece. But the specimens that
are found along the coast and on the rocks are small-sized, and the
bloom in their case is of a reddish hue. Further, as a general rule,
in northern waters the bloom is blackish, and in southern waters of
a reddish hue. The murex is caught in the spring-time when engaged
in the construction of the honeycomb; but it is not caught at any time
about the rising of the dog-star, for at that period it does not feed,
but conceals itself and burrows. The bloom of the animal is situated
between the mecon (or quasi-liver) and the neck, and the co-attachment
of these is an intimate one. In colour it looks like a white membrane,
and this is what people extract; and if it be removed and squeezed
it stains your hand with the colour of the bloom. There is a kind of
vein that runs through it, and this quasi-vein would appear to be in
itself the bloom.

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So much for the copulations of such animals as copulate.

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

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

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

The female elephant

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

The female

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

Bitches

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

With regard to the age of the

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parents, the litter is the best when they are in their prime; but with
regard to the seasons of the year, the litter is the best that comes
at the beginning of winter; and the summer litter the poorest,
consisting as it usually does of animals small and thin and flaccid.
The boar, if it be well fed, is sexually capable at all hours, night
and day; but otherwise is peculiarly salacious early in the morning.
As it grows old the sexual passion dies away, as we have already
remarked. Very often a boar, when more or less impotent from age or
debility, finding itself unable to accomplish the sexual commerce with
due speed, and growing fatigued with the standing posture, will roll
the sow over on the ground, and the pair will conclude the operation
side by side of one another. The sow is sure of conception if it drops
its lugs in rutting time; if the ears do not thus drop, it may have to
rut a second time before impregnation takes place.

Rams single

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

The boar is good for breeding purposes until he is three years
of age; but after that age his issue deteriorates, for after that
age his vigour is on the decline. The boar is most capable after a
good feed, and with the first sow it mounts; if poorly fed or put to
many females, the copulation is abbreviated, and the litter is
comparatively poor. The first litter of the sow is the fewest in
number; at the second litter she is at her prime. The animal, as it
grows old, continues to breed, but the sexual desire abates. When they
reach fifteen years, they become unproductive, and are getting old. If
a sow be highly fed, it is all the more eager for sexual commerce,
whether old or young; but, if it be over-fattened in pregnancy, it
gives the less milk after parturition.

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

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

As a general

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rule these animals are sexually
capable when three years old, and they grow better for breeding
purposes until they reach twenty years. The stallion is sexually
capable up to the age of thirty-three years, and the mare up to forty,
so that, in point of fact, the animals are sexually capable all
their lives long; for the stallion, as a rule, lives for about
thirty-five years, and the mare for a little over forty; although,
by the way, a horse has known to live to the age of seventy-five.
The ass and the she-ass are sexually capable when thirty months old;
but, as a rule, they are not generatively mature until they are
three years old, or three years and a half. An instance has been known
of a she-ass bearing and bringing forth a foal when only a year old. A
cow has been known to calve when only a year old, and the calf grew as
big as might be expected, but no more. So much for the dates in time
at which these animals attain to generative capacity.

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The following are the ages at which various animals become
capacitated for sexual commerce. The ewe and the she-goat are sexually
mature when one year old, and this statement is made more
confidently in respect to the she-goat than to the ewe; the ram and
the he-goat are sexually mature at the same age. The progeny of very
young individuals among these animals differs from that of other
males: for the males improve in the course of the second year, when
they become fully mature. The boar and the sow are capable of
intercourse when eight months old, and the female brings forth when
one year old, the difference corresponding to her period of gestation.
The boar is capable of generation when eight months old, but, with a
sire under a year in age, the litter is apt to be a poor one. The
ages, however, are not invariable; now and then the boar and the sow
are capable of intercourse when four months old, and are capable of
producing a litter which can be reared when six months old; but at
times the boar begins to be capable of intercourse when ten months. He
continues sexually mature until he is three years old. The dog and the
bitch are, as a rule, sexually capable and sexually receptive when a
year old, and sometimes when eight months old; but the priority in
date is more common with the dog than with the bitch. The period of
gestation with the bitch is sixty days, or sixty-one, or sixty-two, or
sixty-three at the utmost; the period is never under sixty days, or,
if it is, the litter comes to no good. The bitch, after delivering a
litter, submits to the male in six months, but not before. The horse
and the mare are, at the earliest, sexually capable and sexually
mature when two years old; the issue, however, of parents of this
age is small and poor.

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

There is a difference

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

In other animals

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

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

Further,

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

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

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