History of Animals · Book VI

Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language

1| Among snakes, the viper bears its young alive outside the body, having first laid an egg inside itself; and the egg, as with fish, is a single color and soft-shelled. The young comes to be on top of it, and no hard shell-like rind encloses it, just as none does with fish either. She bears small young vipers in membranes, which burst open on the third day; sometimes, too, the young eat their way through from inside and come out. She bears one in a day, and bears more than twenty in all; the other snakes lay eggs outside the body, and the eggs are joined to one another like a woman's string of beads; when she has laid them in the ground, she broods over them. These too hatch in the following year. Book Z.

2| The generations of snakes and of insects, and further of the four-footed egg-laying animals, occur in this way. Birds all lay eggs, but the season of mating and the times of laying are not the same for all of them. For some both mate and lay at almost every season, such as the hen and the pigeon — the hen laying the whole year round except for the two turning-point months of winter. Some, even of the well-bred kinds, lay a great number, even sixty, before brooding; and yet the well-bred hens are less prolific layers than the common ones. The Adriatic hens are small in size, and lay every single day; they are fierce, and often kill their chicks; they have every kind of coloring. Some home-bred hens even lay twice a day; indeed some, from laying too much, have already died quickly from it. The hens, then, lay continuously, as has been said; the pigeon, the ring-dove, the turtle-dove, and the stock-dove lay two eggs at a time, but pigeons lay even ten times a year. Most birds lay in the spring season, and some of them are prolific, and prolific in two ways — some by laying often, like pigeons, others by laying many at a time, like hens.

3| All the hook-taloned birds produce few young, except the kestrel; this bird lays the most of the hook-taloned kinds. As many as four have already been observed, but it lays even more. Most birds lay in nests, but the non-flying ones do not lay in nests, such as partridges and quails, but on the ground, sheltering the eggs with foliage. So too the crested lark and the corn-crake. These, then, make their nests in shelter from the wind; but the bird the Boeotians call the eirops burrows into holes in the ground and nests there alone. Thrushes build a nest, like swallows, out of mud on the tops of tall trees, and they build them one after another and joined to each other, so that because of this continuity there is, as it were, a string of nests. The hoopoe alone, of the birds that nest by themselves, builds no nest at all, but works its way into tree-trunks and lays in their hollows, gathering nothing together. The cuckoo nests both in houses and among rocks. The tetrix, which the Athenians call the ourax, nests neither on the ground nor in trees, but on low-growing plants.

4| The egg of all birds alike is hard-shelled, provided it has been fertilized and not spoiled (for hens do lay some soft ones), and the eggs of birds are two-colored, the white outside and the yolk inside. The eggs of birds that live around rivers and marshes differ from those of birds that walk on dry land; for the eggs of water birds have proportionally many times more yolk than white. The colors of eggs also differ according to the kinds of birds; for some birds' eggs are white, such as those of the pigeon and the partridge, others are yellow, such as those of the marsh-dwellers, others are speckled, such as those of guinea-fowl and pheasants; and the eggs of the kestrel are red like red ochre. The egg has a difference of shape: at one end it is pointed, at the other broader; and the broad end comes out first. Long, pointed eggs are female, while round eggs with roundness at the pointed end are male. Eggs are hatched out when birds brood over them, but they also hatch spontaneously in the ground, as in Egypt, when they are buried in dung.

5| And at Syracuse there was a certain fond drinker who used to set himself down on the ground under a rush mat and drink continuously for so long a time, they say, that the eggs he was hatching hatched. Indeed eggs placed in warm vessels have been fully concocted and have hatched out on their own. Now the seed of all birds is white, as it is in the other animals too; and when the female has been mated, it rises up toward the diaphragm. At first it appears small and white, then red and blood-colored, and as it grows it becomes yellow-colored and wholly yellow throughout; and when it becomes at length more substantial, it separates out, and the yellow settles inside while the white forms around it on the outside. When it is completed, it is released and comes out, changing at that point, by virtue of its softness, over into hardness, so that it comes out not yet set but sets and becomes hard immediately after coming out, unless it comes out diseased. It has also been observed — just as at a certain stage the egg is formed (for the whole of it is uniformly yellow, the way the chick later is) — that similar things are found in a cock when it is cut open under the diaphragm, in the place where the females have their eggs: things yellow in kind throughout and the size of eggs; these people count as a kind of freak.

6| Those who say that wind-eggs are leftovers from earlier matings are not telling the truth; for hens' and geese's young that have never been mated have been observed often enough laying wind-eggs. Wind-eggs are smaller in size and less pleasant and moister than fertile ones, but more numerous; and when they are put under a hen, the fluid does not thicken at all, but the yellow and the white remain unchanged, being alike as they were. Wind-eggs occur in many birds — for instance the hen, the partridge, the pigeon, the peacock, the goose, the fox-goose. They hatch faster when brooded in summer than in winter: hens hatch in eighteen days in summer, but in winter sometimes in twenty-five. Birds do, however, differ from one another in being better or worse at brooding. And if it thunders while a bird is brooding, the eggs are spoiled. The eggs some call "dog-star eggs" and "wind-season eggs" occur more in summer. Some call wind-eggs "zephyr-eggs," because it is around springtime that birds are seen taking in the winds; and they do the same thing, too, when stroked somehow by the hand. Wind-eggs become fertile, and eggs already present from mating change over from one kind to another, if the bird that has the wind-eggs, or the eggs already taken up by seed from another bird, is mated before the change from yellow to white takes place;

7| and so the wind-eggs become fertile, while the ones already present take on the character of the later-mating bird. But if the mating happens once the change to white has already begun, nothing changes — neither do the wind-eggs change so as to become fertile, nor do the ones already conceived by seed change over into the kind of the mating bird. And if the mating is interrupted while the eggs already present are still small, the ones already present grow no further; but if the bird is mated again, the increase in size is rapid. The yellow and the white of the egg have a nature opposite to one another, not only in color but also in capacity: the yellow sets under cold, while the white does not set but rather grows moister; whereas under fire the white sets, while the yellow does not set but continues soft, unless it is burned right through, and it congeals and dries out more when boiled than when roasted. Each of the two is kept separate from the other by a membrane. The hailstone-like knots at the origin of the yolk contribute nothing to generation, as some suppose; there are two of them, one below and one above. And this happens with the yellow and the white: when someone takes several such eggs out, pours them together into a bladder, and boils them gently, without a strong fire, the yellow all gathers together into the middle, while the white settles around it in a circle.

8| Among hens, the young ones begin laying first, right at the start of spring, and they lay more than the older ones do; but the eggs from the younger ones are smaller in size. In general, if birds are not allowed to brood, they sicken and suffer harm. After mating, hens shudder and shake themselves and often pick up a bit of straw and wrap it around themselves (they sometimes do this same thing after laying too); pigeons draw in the rump; geese duck right under the water. Conception and the taking-up of wind-eggs happen quickly in most birds — for instance in the partridge, when it is in heat for mating: if it stands downwind of the male, it conceives, and immediately becomes useless for hunting, since the partridge is thought to have a keen sense of smell. The formation of the egg after mating, and, once the egg is in turn concocted, the formation of the chick from it, does not take the same length of time in every case, but differs according to the size of the breeders. The hen's egg is formed after mating and is completed, generally speaking, in ten days; the pigeon's egg somewhat sooner. Pigeons are able, even while the egg is already in the pangs of being laid, to hold it back;

9| for if something disturbs the bird — around the nest, or a feather gets plucked out, or it suffers some other trouble and becomes upset — it holds the egg back and, although about to lay, does not lay. The following things too are peculiar to pigeons in regard to mating. They kiss one another before the male is about to mount, or he will not mate — the older male does this the first time only; afterward he mounts even without kissing; but the younger ones always do this before mating. This, then, they do as something peculiar to them; and further, the females mount one another, when no male is present, having kissed first just as the males do; and although they emit nothing into one another, they lay more eggs than the ones produced by seed, and from these no chick at all is produced, but all such eggs are wind-eggs.

10| The generation from the egg happens in the same way for all birds, but the times to completion differ, as has been said. In hens, then, once three days and nights have passed, the first sign appears; in the larger birds it takes a longer time, in the smaller ones a shorter time. At this stage the yellow has already moved up toward the pointed end, where the origin of the egg is and where the egg hatches, and the heart appears in the white as a mere blood-colored speck. This point leaps and moves as though it were alive, and from it two blood-filled, vein-like passages, coiling, lead as it grows into each of the surrounding membranes. And a membrane containing blood-colored fibers already encloses the white at this time, running out from the vein-like passages. A little later the body too is already differentiated, at first altogether small and white. The head is distinct, and its eyes are especially swollen out; and this continues far into development, for it is only late that they become small and close up. Of the body, the lower part at first shows no distinction at all from the upper.

11| Of the passages that stretch from the heart, one leads to what surrounds the embryo all around, the other to the yolk, which acts like a navel-cord. The chick's starting-point is from the white, and its nourishment comes through the navel-cord from the yolk. By the tenth day the chick is already wholly distinct, and all its parts are visible. But it still has a head larger than the rest of its body, and eyes larger than the head, though these do not yet have sight. At about this time the eyes, when lifted out, are found to be larger than beans and black; and when the skin is removed there is inside a moist white substance, cold, and glistening strongly toward the light, but nothing solid. That, then, is the condition of the eyes and the head at this time; and by now the internal organs are also visible, together with the region of the belly and the nature of the intestines, and the veins running from the heart are already seen stretching toward the navel-cord. From the navel-cord one vein stretches to the membrane surrounding the yolk (the yolk at this time is already fluid, and more abundant than is natural), while the other stretches to the membrane that surrounds the whole — both the membrane in which the chick lies and the membrane of the yolk, and the fluid between these two.

12| For as the chick grows, the yolk is gradually divided, part of it becoming upper and part lower, with the white fluid in the middle; and of the lower yolk the white lies underneath, just as it did at first. By the tenth day the white has become the outermost layer, being now small in amount, and glutinous, and thick, and slightly yellowish. For each part is arranged by position in the following way. First and outermost, next to the shell, is the membrane of the egg — not the membrane of the shell itself, but the one beneath it. Within this is the fluid white; then the chick, and around it a separating membrane, so that the chick may not lie in the fluid; and beneath the chick is the yolk, into which one of the veins led, while the other led to the surrounding white. The whole is enclosed by a membrane together with a serum-like moisture. Then there is another membrane, already around the embryo itself, as has been said, separating it from the fluid. Below this the yolk is enclosed in a further membrane, into which the navel-cord running from the heart and the great vein leads, so that the embryo lies in neither of the two fluids. By about the twentieth day it already makes a sound when moved from within, if one moves it after opening the egg, and it is by now becoming downy, when the hatching of the eggs takes place after the twentieth day.

13| It has its head above the right leg, at the flank, and its wing above its head; and visible at this time is the chorion-like membrane which comes after the outermost membrane of the shell, the one into which the second navel-cord stretched (and the chick is now entirely within this membrane), and also the other chorion-like membrane, the one around the yolk into which the other navel-cord stretched; both of these led from the heart and the great vein. At this time the navel-cord that stretched to the outer chorion collapses and is released from the animal, while the one leading to the yolk is joined to the chick's small intestine, and much of the yolk is by now inside the chick, with a yolky sediment in the belly. Also around this time it discharges residue toward the outer chorion, and it also has some in its belly; the outer residue too is white, and some white residue forms inside as well. Finally the yolk, growing ever smaller and diminishing, is entirely used up and taken in within the chick, so that when it has already hatched, on the tenth day after hatching, if one cuts it open, a small bit of the yolk is still left near the intestine, though it has been released from the navel-cord, and nothing remains between — it has all been consumed.

14| Around the time mentioned earlier the chick sleeps, but it also wakes and, moving, opens its eyes and makes a sound; and the heart together with the navel-cord pulses as if it were breathing. This, then, is the manner in which birds are generated from the egg. Birds lay some eggs that are unfertile, even those produced from mating, and when these are brooded nothing hatches from them; this has been observed especially in pigeons. Twin eggs have two yolks, and in some of these a thin partition keeps the yolks from running together into one, while in others there is no such partition, and the yolks touch one another. There are some hens that lay only twin eggs, and in these the phenomenon concerning the yolk has actually been observed: one hen that laid eighteen eggs hatched twins from all of them, except for those that were wind-eggs. The rest were fertile in general, except that of the twins one chick becomes larger and the other smaller, and the last one is monstrous.

15| All the pigeon-family birds lay two eggs, as for instance the ring-dove and the turtle-dove for the most part, though most lay three — the turtle-dove and the ring-dove included. The domestic pigeon, as has been said, lays at every season, but the turtle-dove and the ring-dove lay in spring, not more than twice; and they lay a second time when the first brood has been destroyed, for many birds destroy their own. So they do sometimes lay three, as has been said, but they never bring off more than two chicks, and sometimes only one; and the egg that is left over is always a wind-egg. Most birds produce no young in their first year. All birds, once they have begun to lay, continue to have eggs virtually without a break, although in some, because of their small size, this is not easy to observe. The domestic pigeon is for the most part male and female together, and of these the male generally lays first; and after laying it generally leaves off for one day, then lays the other egg again. The male also broods for part of the day, and the female by night. The egg laid earlier is fully formed and hatches within twenty days;

16| and the chick pierces the egg the day before it hatches. Both parents warm the chicks for the same length of time that they brooded the eggs. The female is more troublesome than the male about the rearing of the young, just as with other animals after giving birth. Pigeons lay as many as ten times a year, some even eleven times, and those in Egypt as many as twelve times. The domestic pigeon mates and is mated within the year — indeed it mates and is mated at six months old. Some say that ring-doves and turtle-doves mate and breed even at three months, taking as their evidence how numerous they are. They are pregnant for fourteen days, and brood for as many more; and in another fourteen days the young are so fully feathered that they are not easily caught. The ring-dove lives, so they say, as long as forty years; and partridges live more than sixteen years. The domestic pigeon, once it has finished rearing its brood, lays again within thirty days.

17| The vulture nests on inaccessible rocks; hence it is rare to see a vulture's nest and its young. And it is for this reason that Herodorus, father of the sophist Bryson, says that vultures come from another land, unknown to us, adducing as evidence for this the fact that no one has seen a vulture's nest, and that many appear suddenly, following armies. This is indeed hard to see, but it has nonetheless been observed. Vultures lay two eggs. As for the other flesh-eating birds, none has been observed laying more than once; but the swallow alone among flesh-eaters nests twice. And if one pricks out the eyes of swallow chicks while they are still young, they become sound again and can see later on.

18| The eagle lays three eggs, but hatches only two of them, as is also said in the verses attributed to Musaeus: "Who lays three, hatches two, and heeds only one." This, then, is what happens in most cases, but three chicks have also been observed. As the chicks grow, the eagle throws out one of them, being burdened by the feeding. At the same time it is also said that during this period it goes without food, so as not to seize the young of wild animals; for its talons become twisted for a few days, and its feathers turn white, so that at that time it becomes harsh even toward its own young. The one that is cast out is taken in and reared by the ossifrage. It broods for about thirty days. Among the other large birds too the period of brooding is about this long, as with the goose and the bustard; among the middle-sized ones it is about twenty days, as with the kite and the hawk. The kite lays mostly two eggs, but sometimes brings out three chicks; the one called the Aetolian kite sometimes even four. The raven too lays not only two eggs, as some say, but more; it broods for about twenty days, and the raven casts out its chicks. Other birds do this same thing too; for often, those that lay several eggs cast out one of them. Not all species of eagle are alike toward their young: the white-tailed eagle is harsh, while the black eagles are good providers of food for their young, since practically all the hook-taloned birds, as soon as the chicks are able to fly, drive them out of the nest by striking them. And of the other birds too, as has been said, most do this: once they have reared their young they take no further care of them thereafter, except the crow; the crow takes care of them for some time, for even after they are already flying it feeds them, flying alongside them.

20| The cuckoo is said by some to change from a hawk, because the hawk it resembles disappears around this time; and indeed the other hawks too can hardly be seen, once the cuckoo begins to call, except for a few days. The cuckoo appears for only a short time in summer, and disappears in winter. The hawk is hook-taloned, but the cuckoo is not hook-taloned. Further, its head does not resemble a hawk's either, but in both these respects it is more like a pigeon; it resembles the hawk only in coloring, except that the hawk's markings are like stripes, while the cuckoo's are like spots. Its size and flight, however, are close to those of the smallest hawk, which for the most part is not to be seen during the time the cuckoo appears, although in fact both have been seen together. A cuckoo has even been seen being eaten by a hawk, yet none of the birds of the cuckoo's own kind does this. They say no one has ever seen the chicks of a cuckoo; it does lay eggs, but without building a nest of its own — instead it sometimes lays in the nests of smaller birds, after eating their eggs, especially in the nests of ring-doves, having eaten their eggs too. It rarely lays two eggs, but mostly one. It also lays in the nest of the hedge-sparrow, and this bird hatches and rears the chick. It becomes especially fat and good to eat at this particular season. The chicks of hawks too become very good to eat and fat. One kind of hawk nests far off, on sheer rock faces.

21| Most birds brood, as has been said about pigeons, with the males relieving the females — some for only as long as the female is away procuring food for herself. Among geese, the females alone brood, and once they begin doing so they stay continuously sitting. The nests of all marsh birds are built near marshy, grassy places; and this is why, even while staying quietly on the eggs, they are able to procure food for themselves and not go entirely without eating. Among crows too the females alone brood, and remain continuously sitting on the eggs the whole time; the males feed them, bringing them food and feeding them. Among ring-doves, the female begins in the late afternoon and broods through the whole night until the hour of breakfast, while the male broods for the rest of the time. Partridges make two separate nests for their eggs, and the female broods on one, the male on the other; each hatches out and leads forth his own brood; and as soon as the male first leads out the chicks, he mounts them.

22| The peacock lives about twenty-five years, and begins breeding chiefly at three years old, at which time it also acquires the variegated coloring of its feathers; it hatches its eggs in thirty days or a little more. It lays only once a year; it lays twelve eggs or a little fewer; it lays with an interval of two or three days between, not in succession; those laying for the first time lay about eight eggs at most. Peahens also lay wind-eggs. They mate around spring, and the laying follows immediately after mating. It molts its feathers together with the first trees, and begins to regain its plumage again together with their budding. Those who keep peacocks put their eggs under a hen to brood, because when the female does this herself the male flies at her and breaks them; and for this same reason some wild birds too lay and brood while hiding from the males. At most two eggs are put under the hen for this purpose, for that is all she can hatch out while brooding. They take care that she does not interrupt the brooding by getting down off the eggs, by setting food beside her. Birds have noticeably larger testicles around mating time — those more given to mating have them more noticeably so, such as cocks and partridges, while those that do not mate continually have them less noticeably enlarged. This, then, is how matters stand concerning the conception and generation of birds,

23| and as for fish, it has been said earlier that not all of them lay eggs. For the selachians bear live young, while the rest of the fish kind lay eggs. The selachians bear live young after first producing eggs within themselves, and they rear the young within themselves, except for the fishing-frog. Fish also have differing wombs, as was said above; for the egg-laying kinds have wombs that are forked and situated low down, while the selachians have wombs more like those of birds. It differs from the womb of birds in that, in some cases, the eggs do not form near the diaphragm, but midway along the backbone, and from there, as they grow, they move onward. The egg of all fish is not two-colored but one-colored, either whiter or more yellowish, both before and once the embryo is present within it. The development from the egg differs between fish and birds in that it does not have the second umbilical cord stretching to the membrane beneath the shell; but of the two cords that birds have, the one stretching to the yolk, this alone it has. The rest of the development from the egg is now entirely the same in both birds and fish: the embryo forms at the tip of the egg, and the veins likewise stretch out from the heart first, and the head and eyes and the upper parts are likewise the largest at first;

24| As it grows, the yolk always becomes smaller, and in the end it disappears and sinks in, just as what is called the chick does in birds. The navel-cord too is attached a little below the mouth of the belly. In the young it is long, but as they grow it becomes smaller, and in the end small, until it goes in altogether, as was said in the case of birds. The embryo and the yolk are enclosed together by a common membrane; beneath this there is another membrane, which encloses the embryo separately; and between the membranes there is fluid. And the nourishment in the belly of the little fish is similar to that in the chicks of birds, one part white, the other yellowish. As for the shape of the uterus, that should be studied from dissections; but there is a difference among these animals themselves, for instance among the dogfish-type sharks, both among themselves and as against the flat rays. For in some the eggs are attached in the middle of the uterus around the spine, as has been said, for instance in the dogfish; and as they grow they move round. And since the uterus is forked and attached to the diaphragm, as is also true of the other animals of this kind, the embryo moves round into each of the two parts.

25| This uterus, and that of the other dogfish-type sharks, has, a little way along from the diaphragm, what look like white breasts, which do not form when there are no young inside. The dogfish and the skates have the shell-like structures in which an egg-like fluid forms; the shape of the shell is like the reeds of flutes, and hair-like passages form in the shells. In the dogfish, then, which some call fawn-sharks, when the shell breaks around and falls off, the young are born; in the skates, when they give birth, the shell breaks around and the young comes out. The spiny dogfish holds its eggs by the diaphragm, above the breasts; and when the egg descends, the young is formed from it once it has been released. The same manner of generation occurs also in the foxsharks. The so-called smooth sharks hold their eggs between the horns of the uterus just as the dogfish do, and these, having gone round, descend into each of the two forks of the uterus, and the young are formed with the navel-cord attached to the uterus, so that, as the eggs are used up, the embryo seems to be in the same condition as in the four-footed animals. The navel-cord, being long, is attached at the lower part to the uterus, each one hanging as though from a cotyledon, and at the embryo to the middle, where the liver is.

26| The nourishment, when it is dissected, is egg-like, even if it no longer has the yolk. A chorion and separate membranes form around each of the embryos, just as in the four-footed animals. The embryos have the head upward when they are young, but downward once they have grown stout and are mature. Males occur in the left uterus and females in the right, and in the same uterus at once both females and males. And the embryos, when dissected, just as in the four-footed animals, have those of the internal organs large which are large in the adult, for instance the liver, and full of blood. All the cartilaginous fish have at the same time, above near the diaphragm, eggs, some larger some smaller, many of them, and below, embryos already formed; hence many suppose that such fish give birth and mate every month, because they do not release them all at once, but often, over a long time. Those below, in the uterus, are concocted and brought to completion all together. Now the other dogfish-sharks both let their young out and take them back into themselves, as do the angel-sharks and the electric rays (indeed a large electric ray has been seen having about eighty embryos in itself), but the spiny dogfish alone among the sharks does not take them back in, because of its spine.

27| Among the flat ones, the stingray and the skate do not take them back in, because of the roughness of the tail. Nor does the angler-fish take its young back in, because of the size of its head and its spines; for indeed it alone of these does not bear its young live, as was said earlier. The differences among them relative to one another are of this kind, and so is their generation from eggs; the males, around the time of mating, have their ducts so full of milt that when pressed the semen flows out white. The ducts are forked, having their origin from the diaphragm and the great vein. Now around this time the ducts of the males are already clearly distinct in relation to the uterus of the females, but when it is not the season, they are less distinct, through disuse; indeed in some cases and at some times they become altogether indistinct, just as was said about the testicles in birds. The seminal ducts and the uterine ducts also have other differences from one another, in that the former are attached to the loin, while the ducts of the females are easily moved and are held together by a thin membrane. The ducts of the males, as they are, should be studied from what has been set out in the dissections. The cartilaginous fish become pregnant, and carry for the most part six months. The one called the starry dogfish gives birth most often, for it gives birth twice a month. They begin to mate in the month of Maimakterion. The other dogfish-sharks give birth twice, except the common dogfish; this one gives birth once a year.

28| Some of them give birth in spring, but the angel-shark gives birth in autumn too, toward the winter setting of the Pleiades for the later brood, and at the start of spring for the first; and of its offspring, the later brood thrives best; the electric rays give birth around autumn. The cartilaginous fish give birth near the land, coming up from the open sea and the depths, both because of the warmth and because of fear for their offspring. Now among the other fish none has been observed mating outside its own kind, but the angel-shark and the skate alone seem to do this; for there is a fish called the shark-ray; it has the head and forequarters of the skate, and the hindquarters of the angel-shark, as though it were produced from both of these. Now the dogfish-sharks and the shark-like fish, such as the foxshark and the dogfish, and the flat fish, the electric ray and the skate and the smooth-ray and the stingray, bear their young live in the manner described, having first produced eggs,

29| but the dolphin and the whale and the other cetaceans, all that do not have gills but a blowhole, bear their young live, and so too the sawfish and the ox-ray; for none of these is seen to have eggs, but immediately a fetus, from which, as it becomes articulated, the animal is formed, just as with man and the four-footed animals that bear their young live. The dolphin bears mostly one, but sometimes also two; the whale either two at most, and more than once, or one. The porpoise is like the dolphin in this too, for it is like a small dolphin, and occurs in the Black Sea. The porpoise differs from the dolphin: it is smaller in size, and broader across the back; its color is dark blue. Many say the porpoise is a kind of dolphin. All that have a blowhole breathe, and take in air; for they have lungs. And the dolphin has been observed, when sleeping, with its snout sticking up, and it snores as it sleeps. The dolphin and the porpoise have milk, and their young are suckled; and they take their young back in when they are small. The young of dolphins grow quickly; for in ten years they attain their full size.

30| The dolphin carries its young ten months. It gives birth in summer, and at no other season; and it happens that it also disappears around the rising of the dog-star for about thirty days. The young follow the mother for a long time, and the animal is fond of its offspring. It lives many years; for some have been shown to live, some twenty-five years, others thirty, since fishermen cut off the tail-fin of some and let them go, so that by this mark their ages become known. The seal is one of the animals that belong to both realms; for it does not take in water, but breathes, sleeps, and gives birth on land, and near the shore too, since it belongs among the land animals, but it spends most of its time and gets its food from the sea, and for this reason it must be discussed along with the water animals. It bears its young alive, straightaway within itself, and produces living young, and expels the afterbirth and the rest just as a sheep does. It bears one or two, and at most three. It has two teats, and is suckled by its young just as the four-footed animals are. It gives birth, like a human being, at any season of the year, but especially at the same time as the first goats.

31| It leads its young to the sea when they are about twelve days old, many times a day, accustoming them little by little; and the young are carried down the slope but do not walk, because they cannot brace themselves on their feet. The seal draws itself together and contracts itself, for it is fleshy and soft, and has cartilaginous bones. It is hard to kill a seal by force, unless one strikes it near the temple, since its body is fleshy. It emits a sound like an ox. The female also has a genital part like that of a ray, but in everything else is like a woman. Concerning the water animals, then, that bear their young alive either within themselves or outside, and the manner of their bearing, this is how matters stand.

32| Among fish, the egg-laying kinds have a uterus that is two-forked and situated below, as was said before (all the scaled fish lay eggs, for example the bass, the mullet, the grey mullet, the sea-bream, and all the so-called white fish, and the smooth-skinned ones except the eel), and their egg is crumbly. This appears to be so because the uterus is entirely full of eggs, so that in small fish it seems there are only two eggs; for on account of their smallness and thinness the uterus is not clear in them. Concerning the mating of all fish it has been spoken of before. Most fish are male and female, but about the erythrinos and the channe there is a difficulty; for all that are caught are found to have roe. Now eggs form in fish that pair and mate, but they also have eggs without mating. Some of the river fish make this clear; for the minnows, almost as soon as they are born and while still small, have roe. They shed the eggs, and, as is said, the males gulp down most of the eggs, and the rest are lost in the water; but whatever they deposit into the places into which they lay, these are preserved—

33| for if all were preserved, the stock of each kind would be enormously numerous. And even of these not many become fertile, but only those on which the male sprinkles his milt; for when the female has laid, the male follows along and sprinkles the milt over the eggs, and from all those sprinkled fry are produced, while from the rest it is a matter of chance. This same thing happens also in the case of the soft-bodied creatures; for the male cuttlefish, when the female has laid, sprinkles the eggs. It is reasonable that this should happen also with the other cephalopods, but among cuttlefish alone has it so far been observed. They lay near the land—the gobies near the stones, except that what is laid is flat and crumbly. And likewise the others too; for the places around the land are warm, and there is more food there, and it protects the roe from being eaten up by larger fish. This is why in the Black Sea, around the river Thermodon, most fish spawn; for the place is windless and warm and has fresh water. The other egg-laying fish spawn once a year, except the small wrasses—

34| these spawn twice. The male wrasse differs from the female in being blacker and having larger scales. Now the other fish lay their eggs together with a discharge of spawn and let the eggs go; but the one that some call the garfish, when the season for laying has come, splits open, and in this way the eggs come out. For this fish has a kind of slit under the belly and the lower abdomen, like the blind snakes; and when it has finished laying, this closes up again. The generation from the egg happens in the same way both for those that lay their eggs internally and for those that lay them externally; for it takes place at the tip and is enclosed in a membrane, and the first parts to become distinct are the eyes, which are large and spherical. From this it is also clear that they are not produced in the same way as those said by some to be produced from grubs; for with those the opposite happens, the lower parts becoming larger first, and the eyes and head later. When the egg has been used up, they become tadpole-like, and at first, taking in no food, they grow from the moisture that comes from the egg, but later they are nourished, until they grow, by the water of the rivers. When the Black Sea purges itself, something is carried down along the Hellespont which they call seaweed—

35| this is yellowish. Some say that this seaweed is a kind of natural flower. It occurs at the start of summer. On this both the shellfish and the small fish in these regions feed. Some of those concerned with sea creatures say that even the purple-fish gets its color from this.

36| The fish of lakes and rivers have roe, as a rule, when they are five months old in age, but they all spawn as the year comes round; and just as the sea fish do, so these too never release everything at once, neither do the females release all the eggs nor the males all the milt, but they always have more or less remaining, the females eggs and the males milt. They spawn in the appropriate season: the carp five or six times, and it makes its spawning especially at the risings of certain stars; the chalkis spawns three times, and the others once a year. All spawn in the shallows before the rivers and lakes, near the reedy places, for example the minnows and the perch. The sheatfish and the perch release their spawn continuously, like frogs; and the spawn is continuous in this way, coiled together, so much so that in the case of the perch, because of its flatness, fishermen wind it off the reeds in the lakes like thread from a spindle. Now the larger sheatfish spawn in the deep water, some even at a depth of a fathom, while the smaller ones among them spawn in the shallower water, especially near the roots of a willow or some other tree, and also near the reed and near the moss.

37| Fish sometimes mate with one another even when one is very large and the other small; and bringing together their passages, which some call navels, by which they release their offspring, one releases the egg and the other the milt. Whatever eggs come into contact with the milt at once appear whiter and larger, within a day so to speak. Later, in a short time, the eyes of the fish become visible; for this, in all fish as in other animals, is the most conspicuous feature immediately, and it appears the largest part. Whatever eggs the milt does not touch, just as with sea fish, that egg is useless and infertile. From the fertile eggs, as the little fish grow, something like a shell is shed off; this is the membrane that encloses the egg and the little fish. When the milt mixes with the egg, what forms from the two becomes very sticky, at the roots or wherever they spawn. Wherever they spawn the most, the male guards the eggs, while the female goes off after spawning. The slowest growth from eggs belongs to the glanis (sheatfish), which is why the male stays beside them for as many as forty or fifty days, so that the offspring is not eaten by fish that happen to pass by.

38| Second in slowness is the generation of the carp, though even in this case the offspring that survives escapes quickly. Of the smaller kinds, some are already little fish by the third day. The eggs that the milt touches grow, both on the same day and afterward as well. Thus the glanis's egg becomes the size of a vetch-seed, while those of carp and similar fish become the size of a millet-seed. These, then, spawn and generate in this manner; but the chalkis spawns in deep water in dense, shoaling masses, and the fish they call the tilon spawns near the shore in sheltered spots — this too is a shoaling fish. Carp, baleros, and nearly all the others, so to speak, push into the shallows to spawn, and often thirteen or fourteen males follow a single female; and as the female releases her egg and withdraws, they follow after and sprinkle the milt over it. Most of the eggs are lost, since because the female spawns while withdrawing the egg gets scattered — whatever is caught by a current and does not fall onto some solid material perishes; for none of the others guard their eggs except the glanis, unless a carp happens upon a mass of its own spawn —

39| this one, they say, does guard its eggs. All the males have milt except the eel; the eel has neither egg nor milt. Now mullets go up out of the sea into lakes and rivers, while eels do the opposite, going from these into the sea.

40| Most fish, as has been said, come from eggs. But some also come from mud and from sand — and among such kinds, some arise both from mating and from eggs — in marshes and elsewhere, as they say once happened near Cnidus, where a marsh used to dry up under the Dog Star, with all the mud cleared away, and then water would begin to form again along with the first rains. In this water, as it began, little fish would come into being. This was a certain kind of mullet, one that does not even arise from mating, the size of small sprats; it had neither egg nor milt. The same thing also happens in rivers in Asia that do not flow out into the sea: small fish, the size of whitebait, arise there in the same way. Some say that mullets in general are all spontaneously generated, but they are wrong to say so; for their females are plainly seen to have eggs and their males milt. But there is a certain kind among them that is like this, arising from mud and sand. That some things are generated spontaneously, neither from animals nor from mating, is clear from these facts. All creatures that neither lay eggs nor bear live young arise in this way, some from mud, others from sand and from the putrefaction that rises to the surface — just as the so-called aphros, the foam-fish of the anchovy, arises from sandy earth —

41| and this aphye is one that does not grow and cannot reproduce, and when a longer time passes it perishes, and another arises again in its place, so that except for a brief interval it occurs, one might almost say, throughout the rest of the year; for it persists continuously from the autumn setting of Arcturus until spring. A sign that it sometimes rises up out of the earth is this: when men are fishing, if the weather is cold it is not caught, but if the weather is calm it is caught, as though it were rising from the earth toward the warmth. And when the ground is dragged and scraped repeatedly, more of it appears, and better quality. The other kinds of aphye are inferior because they grow quickly. They occur in shaded and marshy places, whenever, in fine weather, the earth grows warm — as around Athens, at Salamis, by the Themistocleum, and at Marathon; for it is in such places that the aphros occurs. It appears in such places and in such fine weather, but it also occurs in some places whenever a great deal of water falls from the sky, forming in the foam produced by the rainwater — which is why it is called aphros, foam. And it is sometimes carried on the surface of the sea when the weather is fine, gathering together in it, just as worms gather in dung — so too the aphros gathers wherever it collects on the surface —

42| which is why in many places this aphye is brought in from the open sea. And the yield is greatest, and the largest catches are taken, whenever the year turns out wet and mild. The other kind of aphye is the offspring of fish: the kind called kobitis is the offspring of the small, worthless gobies that burrow into the ground; from the Phaleric aphye come the membrades, from these the trichides, from the trichides the trichiai, and from one kind of aphye — such as the one found in the harbor of the Athenians — come the so-called anchovies. There is also another aphye, which is the offspring of maenides and mullets. The infertile aphros is moist and lasts only a short time, as has been said before, since in the end only a head and eyes are left of it. But now the fishermen have found a way to preserve it for transport: once salted, it lasts a longer time.

43| Eels arise neither from mating nor by laying eggs; no eel has ever been caught with either milt or eggs, and when dissected they have inside them neither seminal ducts nor uterine passages; rather this entire kind, blooded though it is, arises neither from mating nor from eggs. That this is so is clear: in certain marshy lakes, when all the water has been drained off and the mud scraped away, eels form again once rainwater comes; but in droughts they do not form, nor in lakes that remain full continuously — for indeed they live and are nourished on rainwater. That they arise neither from mating nor from eggs is thus clear. But some think they do generate offspring, because little worms sometimes occur inside eels; for they suppose eels arise from these. This is not true; rather eels arise from the so-called earth's-guts, which form spontaneously in mud and in moist earth. Some eels have already been observed emerging from these, and others become visible when the earth's-guts are being torn apart and cut open. Such generation also occurs in the sea and in rivers, wherever putrefaction is greatest — in the sea, near such spots as have seaweed, and in rivers and lakes, around the edges; for there the strong heat produces putrefaction. Concerning the generation of eels, then, this is how matters stand.

44| Fish do not all give birth at the same season, nor in the same way, nor do they all carry their young for an equal time. Before mating, males and females form separate shoals; but when the time of mating and giving birth comes, they pair off. Some of these carry their young for not more than thirty days, others for a shorter time, but all in periods divided into a number of weeks. The longest carrying time belongs to those some call "marine" fish. The sargue conceives about the month Poseideon, and carries for thirty days; and the fish some call the "tortoise" among the mullets, and the myxon, mate at the same season and carry for the same length of time as the sargue. All of them suffer during pregnancy, and this is especially why they get cast up at this season; for they are driven toward the land in a frenzy. And in general they continue in constant motion throughout this time, until they have given birth; and the grey mullet does this most of all the fish; but when they have given birth, they grow quiet. For many fish there is a limit to their spawning, namely when little worms form in the belly; for small living creatures form there, which drive out the remaining spawn. Births occur for the river fish in spring, and for most fish around the spring equinox;

45| but for the others the season of the year is not the same, but for some it is summer, for others around the autumn equinox. Among such fish the atherine spawns first (and it spawns close to the shore), and the mullet last; this is clear from the fact that its offspring appears first, and the mullet's offspring last. The grey mullet also spawns among the first, and the saupe spawns mostly at the beginning of summer, though in some places in autumn. The aulopias too, which some call the anthias, spawns in summer. After these come the gilthead, the bass, the mormyrus, and in general the fish called the "runners." Last among the shoaling fish are the red mullet and the corcinus; these spawn around autumn. The red mullet spawns on the mud, which is why it spawns late; for the mud stays cold a long time. The corcinus spawns later than the red mullet, coming out onto the seaweed, because it lives in rocky places; and it carries its young for a long time. The picarels spawn after the winter solstice. Of the other fish, those that live in the open sea mostly spawn in summer; a sign of this is that they are not caught during this season. The most prolific of fish is the picarel, and among the cartilaginous fish the frogfish;

46| but these are rare because they are easily destroyed; for they spawn all at once and near the shore. In general the cartilaginous fish are less prolific because they bear their young alive, but these are preserved best because of their size. The fish called the garfish is also a late breeder, and most of them burst apart before giving birth because of their eggs; it does not have so many eggs as it has large ones. And just as with spiders, the young cluster closely around the garfish too; for it gives birth close by itself, and if anyone touches them, they flee. The atherine gives birth by rubbing its belly against the sand. Tunny also burst apart from their fat, and they live two years. Fishermen take this as a sign of it: for when the young tunny failed to appear one year, the following year the tunny too failed to appear. They seem to be a year older than the pelamyds. Tunny and mackerel mate around the end of the month Elaphebolion, and spawn around the beginning of Hecatombaion; they spawn their eggs as if in a pouch. The growth of the young tunny is rapid; for when the fish spawn in the Pontus, from the egg come what some call scordylai, and the Byzantines call auxides, because they grow in a few days, and they swim out in autumn together with the tunny, and swim back in already grown into pelamyds by spring.

47| And nearly all the other fish too grow quickly, and all of them faster in the Pontus; for even the amia grow visibly larger from one day to the next. In general one must recognize that for the same fish, the season is not the same in every place, either for mating and pregnancy or for giving birth and thriving, since indeed the fish called corcini in some places spawn around the time of the grain harvest; but what has been said is aimed at what happens for the most part. Conger eels too have spawn; but this is not equally evident in every place, nor is the spawn itself very visible, because of the fat; for it holds it long and thin, as snakes do too. But putting it on the fire makes it plain; for the fat smokes and melts away, while the eggs leap and crackle as they are squeezed out. Further, if one feels it and rubs it between the fingers, the fat proves smooth, while the egg is rough. So some conger eels have fat but no eggs at all, while others, on the contrary, have no fat but eggs such as has just been described.

48| Concerning the other animals, then, both the swimming and the flying kinds, and concerning the land animals that are egg-laying, we have spoken of nearly everything - concerning both mating and pregnancy and the other matters of the same kind; but concerning the land animals that bear their young alive, and concerning man, we must state what happens to them in the same way. Concerning mating, then, we have spoken both particularly and in common about all of them. Common to all animals is that they are most agitated in respect to desire and pleasure by the act of mating. The females are fiercest right after giving birth, but the males are fiercest around the time of mating. For horses bite other horses and knock them down and chase off their riders, and wild boars are fiercest of all, though weakest at this time, on account of mating, and they fight astonishing battles against one another, arming themselves and making their hide as thick as possible by preparation, rubbing against trees and repeatedly smearing themselves with mud and drying themselves; and they fight one another, driving each other out of the herds, so violently that often both die. In the same way too do bulls and rams and he-goats;

49| for though before this they were used to feeding together, at the season of mating each one fights, splitting off from the rest. The male camel too is fierce about mating, whether it is a man or another camel that approaches; for toward the horse it is always altogether hostile. The same holds among the wild animals too; for bears and wolves and lions become fierce toward those who approach them at this season, though they fight less with one another because none of these animals is a herding kind. Female bears too are fierce on account of their cubs, just as bitches are on account of their puppies. Elephants too grow savage about mating, which is why those in India who keep them, it is said, do not allow them to mate with the females; for becoming frenzied at these times, they overturn their dwellings, since these are poorly built, and do many other things besides. They also say that abundance of food makes them gentler; and by bringing other elephants up to them they discipline and subdue them, ordering the ones brought up to strike them. Animals that mate often, and not at one single season, such as those that live among men, pigs and dogs, appear to do this less because of the abundance of opportunity for intercourse.

50| Among females, the horse is the most driven to mate, and after her the cow. Mares suffer horse-madness; that is why people take the term as an insult, applying it, from this one animal alone, to women who are unrestrained about sex. Mares are also said to conceive by the wind at this season, which is why in Crete they do not remove the studs from among the females. When this happens to them, they run off from the other horses. The condition is the same one that in pigs is called "boaring." They run neither east nor west, but north or south. When the condition seizes them, they let no one come near, until either they give up from exhaustion or reach the sea; then they discharge something. This too is called, as with the newborn foal, hippomanes; it is like the boar's version, and it is the thing that women who deal in drugs seek out above everything else. Around the time of mating they crouch down toward one another more than before, swish their tails frequently, and give out a cry different from their usual one; and from their genitals there flows something like seed, but much thinner than the male's;

51| and some call this too hippomanes, not the growth that forms on foals; they say it is hard to collect, since it flows out little by little. They also urinate often when they are in heat, and play with one another. That, then, is how it is with horses; cows, for their part, come into "bull-madness": they become so overpowered by the condition that the herdsmen cannot control or catch them. Both mares and cows show plainly when they are eager for mating, by the swelling of their genitals, and cows, like mares, urinate frequently. Further, cows mount the bulls, and keep close by them constantly, standing beside them. In both horses and cattle it is the younger animals that come into heat earlier for mating; and when the weather is fine and their bodies are in good condition, they are more eager still. Mares, when they are shorn, become less driven by the urge and grow more subdued. Stallions recognize by scent the mares that belong with their own herd, even if they have only been together a few days before mating; and if the herds get mixed together, the stallions bite and drive the strange mares off, and each herd grazes apart, each stallion keeping his own.

52| Each stallion is given about thirty mares, or a few more. Whenever another stallion approaches, he gathers his mares together, runs around them in a circle, then advances and fights. If any mare tries to move off, he bites her and stops her. The bull, when the season of mating comes, then joins the herd and fights the other bulls, whereas in the time before that the bulls keep together with one another, which is called "deserting the herd"; often, at any rate, the bulls in Epirus are not seen together with the herd for as much as three months. In general, wild animals, or most of them, do not run with the females before the season for mating, but separate out once they reach the right age, and the males graze apart from the females. Sows too, when they are strongly driven toward mating - a condition called "boaring" - will push up even against people. In dogs this same condition is called "being in heat." Swelling of the genitals occurs in females when they are eager for mating, along with moistness in that region; mares, moreover, discharge a white fluid around this time. Menstrual-type discharges do occur, though none like those in women occur in any other animal. In sheep and goats, once the season for mating arrives, there is a sign beforehand that shows it;

53| and once they have been covered, the signs occur, then stop, until they are about to give birth. Then the sign shows again, and this is how the shepherds know which ewes are pregnant. After giving birth, there is a great discharge, at first not very bloody, but afterward quite bloody. In the cow, the ass, and the horse this discharge is greater than in sheep and goats because of their size, but proportionally much less. The cow, when the female is eager for mating, undergoes a slight discharge, about half a cotyle or a little more; and the time for mating comes chiefly around this discharge. The horse, of all four-footed animals, gives birth most easily and has the cleanest afterbirth-discharge, and lets out the least flow of blood in proportion to the size of its body. It is chiefly in cows and mares that the menstrual sign appears at intervals of two, four, and six months; but it is not easy to recognize unless one follows the animals closely and is very familiar with them, and that is why some people think it does not occur in them at all. In female mules no such menstrual discharge occurs at all, but the female's urine is thicker. In general, the residue from the bladder is thicker in four-footed animals than in humans, and in female sheep and goats it is thicker still than in the males;

54| but in the female ass it is thinner, while in the cow the female's is sharper. After giving birth, in all four-footed animals the urine becomes thicker, and more so in those that discharge less afterbirth. Milk, when the animals first begin to be covered, is pus-like; it becomes useful once they have subsequently given birth. Sheep and goats, when pregnant, become fatter and eat more; and cattle likewise, and so do all the other four-footed animals. Speaking generally, they are most driven to mate in spring; not all animals, however, keep to the same season for mating, but time it to suit the rearing of their young at the proper seasons. Domestic sows are pregnant for four months, and and they bear at most twenty piglets; but if they bear many, they cannot rear them all. As they grow older they give birth just as before, but are covered more slowly; they conceive from a single mating, but are often mounted repeatedly, because of a discharge after mating that some call "boar-caul." This happens to all of them, and some at the same time also emit seed. Whatever offspring is damaged during pregnancy and stunted in size is called a "runt";

55| this occurs wherever it happens to lie in the womb. When she gives birth, she offers her first teat to the firstborn. A sow in heat should not be mated at once, before she lays her ears down; otherwise she comes into heat again. But if she is mated while eager, one mating, as has been said, is enough. It is useful to give the boar barley when he is mating, and boiled barley to the sow after she has given birth. Some sows produce fine litters straight off only, while others, as their offspring grow, also bear good young sows. Some say that if a sow has one eye gouged out, it dies quickly in most cases. Most sows live about fifteen years, and some fall only a little short of twenty.

56| Sheep conceive after three or four matings, and if rain comes on after mating, this brings on further conception; goats are the same. Most bear two young, sometimes even three or four. Both sheep and goats carry for five months; that is why in some places, wherever the weather is mild and conditions are favorable and there is abundant food, they give birth twice. The goat lives about eight years, the sheep ten, though most live less, except the leaders of the flock, who live even fifteen. In every flock they train up a leader among the males, who goes ahead of the flock whenever he is called by name by the shepherd; they accustom him to do this from a young age. Sheep around Ethiopia live twelve and even thirteen years, and goats ten and eleven. Both sheep and goats mate and are mated as long as they live. Sheep and goats bear twins both because of good feeding and if the ram or the he-goat is himself a twin, or the mother is. Whether the offspring are female or male depends both on the water they drink (for some waters produce females, others males) and likewise on the matings: when covered in north winds they more often bear males, in south winds females.

57| Animals that bear females can also change and bear males; and one should watch them being mounted facing north. Those accustomed to being mounted early in the day, if someone mounts them late instead, will not tolerate the rams. The offspring turn out white or black according to whether there are white or black veins under the ram's tongue: white if the veins are white, black if black; if both colors are present, both colors appear in the offspring; and reddish-brown if the veins are reddish-brown. Those that drink salt water first are readier to be mounted; one should provide salted water before they give birth, again after they give birth, and again in spring. Shepherds do not appoint a leader among goats, because their nature is not steady but sharp and quick to move about. Among sheep, if the older ewes are the ones eager for mating at the appointed season, shepherds say this is a sign of a good year for the flock; but if it is the younger ones, it is a sign that the flock will fare badly.

58| Dogs come in several breeds. The Laconian bitch both mounts and is mounted at eight months old; and by about this time some of them have already begun to lift a leg to urinate. A bitch conceives from a single mating; this is most clearly seen in cases where the mating is stolen, for they fill her with one mounting. The Laconian bitch carries for a sixth of the year (that is, sixty days), give or take one, two, or three days more or one day less. Her puppies are born blind and remain so for twelve days. Once she has given birth she is mounted again in the sixth month, and not before. Some bitches carry for a fifth of the year (that is, seventy-two days), and their puppies are blind for fourteen days. Others carry for a fourth of the year (that is, three whole months), and their puppies are blind for seventeen days. A bitch is thought to be in heat for the same length of time as she carries. The menstrual discharge occurs in bitches over seven days, and at the same time there is a swelling of the genitals. During this time they do not accept mating, but do so in the seven days that follow;

59| for the whole period of heat is thought, in most cases, to be fourteen days, though in some this condition has lasted as long as sixteen days. The discharge that occurs at whelping happens together with the birth of the puppies, and it is thick and mucus-like; and the bulk of the animal, once she has finished whelping, shrinks less than one would expect relative to her body. Bitches generally begin to have milk five days before giving birth, though in some it appears as early as seven or four days before. The milk is fit for use as soon as they give birth. The Laconian bitch begins producing it thirty days after mating. At first the milk is thick, but with time it becomes thinner. In thickness, dog's milk is second only to that of the pig and the hare among the other animals. A sign also appears when they reach the age for mating: as in humans, a certain swelling comes over the nipples of the teats, and they develop a hard lump there; but this is a hard thing for someone unaccustomed to notice, since the sign has no great size. This, then, happens to the female; none of it happens to the male.

60| Males lift a leg to urinate mostly once they are six months old; but some do this later, only at eight months, and some earlier than six months — for, to put it simply, they do this once they begin to grow strong. All females urinate crouching down; though some of these too have already been seen to urinate with a leg lifted. A bitch bears at most twelve puppies, but for the most part five or six; there is even a case of one bearing just a single puppy. Laconian bitches bear eight for the most part. Females are mounted and males mount for as long as they live. A peculiar condition occurs in Laconian dogs: they are more able to mate after exertion than when idle. The male Laconian dog lives about ten years, the female about twelve; of the other breeds most live about fourteen or fifteen years, and some as many as twenty — which is why some think Homer was right to make Odysseus's dog die in its twentieth year. Among the Laconians, then, because the males exert themselves more, the females are longer-lived than the males;

61| but among the other breeds this is not very noticeable, and if anything the males are longer-lived than the females. A dog does not shed its teeth except for the ones called the canines; these it sheds at four months, females and males alike. Because these are the only teeth shed, some dispute the matter: some say dogs do not shed teeth at all, because only two teeth are shed and it is hard to catch this happening; others, once they have seen these two shed, suppose that the rest are shed as well. People judge a dog's age from its teeth: the young have white, sharp teeth, the older ones have teeth that are black and blunt.

62| The bull fills the cow from a single mating, and he mounts so forcefully that the cow's body bends beneath him; but if he misses his aim, the female waits twenty days before accepting the mating again. The older bulls do not mount the same cow more than once on the same day, unless some time has passed; but the younger ones, because of their vigor, force themselves on the same cow repeatedly and mount many cows. The bull is the least lustful of the males. The bull that wins the contest is the one that mates; but when he becomes exhausted from his lustfulness, the loser mounts, and often prevails. Males mount and females are mounted for the first time as yearlings, so that they can even breed then; but for the most part it happens at a year and eight months, and the most generally agreed-on age is two years. The cow carries for nine months and gives birth in the tenth; though some maintain, counting day by day, that she carries for ten months. Whatever is brought forth before the stated time is a miscarriage and does not survive, for its hooves are soft and undeveloped. She bears one calf at most, rarely two; and she bears and mates for as long as she lives.

63| Cows generally live about fifteen years; and so do the males, if they are castrated. Some live even twenty years or more, if their bodies are naturally sturdy; for indeed people accustom castrated cattle to work and set them up as leaders of the herd, just as with sheep, and these live longer than the others, both because they do not labor and because they graze on undisturbed pasture. A bull is at his peak mainly at five years old, which is why some say Homer was right to have made the phrase 'a male five years old' and 'of a nine-year-old ox,' since these come to the same thing. A bull sheds its teeth at two years old, and not all at once but the way a horse does; and as for its hooves, when it suffers foot-trouble it does not shed them, but its feet merely swell up badly. Its milk becomes usable once it has given birth; before that it has no milk. The milk first produced, when it curdles, becomes as hard as stone, unless one mixes it with water. Cows younger than a year old are not mounted, except in some freakish case; though there have already been cases of four-month-old cattle being mounted and mounting. Most cows begin mating around the month of Thargelion and Skirophorion;

64| Still, some cows conceive even as late as autumn. When many cows are in calf and readily accept mounting, this is thought to be a strong sign of a coming winter and of heavy rain. Habits of individual preference develop among cattle just as among horses, though less so. A male horse begins to mount at two years old, and a female begins to be mounted at two years old; but this happens in only a few cases, and their offspring are smaller and weaker. For the most part they begin to mount, and mares to be mounted, at three years old, and the offspring go on improving up to the age of twenty. A mare carries for eleven months and gives birth in the twelfth. A stallion does not always complete the covering in a fixed number of days: sometimes in one, two, or three, sometimes in more. A donkey mounting a mare completes the act faster than a stallion does. Mating is not laborious for horses the way it is for cattle. After man, the horse is the most lustful of all animals, in both the female and the male. Mating among the young occurs out of season, when there is good grazing and abundance of food. For the most part a mare bears a single foal, though sometimes she bears two at most. There has even been a case of a mule bearing two, which people class among portents. A horse can mount at thirty months, but for it to sire offspring worth having, it must wait until it has shed its milk teeth. Indeed some, they say, have got mares in foal even while still shedding teeth, provided they do not happen to be naturally sterile.

65| A horse has forty teeth in all. It sheds the first four teeth at thirty months, two from above and two from below. When a year has passed it sheds four more in the same way, two above and two below; and again when another year has passed, four more others in the same way. When four years and six months have gone by, it no longer sheds any. There has been a case of a horse shedding all its teeth at once the very first time, and another that shed them all together at the last change; but such things happen rarely. So it comes about, as a rule, that once a horse is four years and six months old it is at its most useful for breeding. Older horses are more fertile than younger ones, and males more than males of a lesser age, and females more than younger females. Horses mount their own mothers and their own daughters; and a herd of horses is considered complete precisely when the sires mate with their own offspring. The Scythians ride pregnant mares hard once the embryo has turned, and claim this makes them give birth more easily. The other four-footed animals give birth lying down, which is why in all of them the young come out sideways; but the mare, once she is close to delivering, stands upright and brings forth her foal in that position.

66| Most horses live around eighteen to twenty years, some twenty-five to thirty; and if a horse is carefully looked after, its life can be extended even to fifty. The longest life-span for most horses, as a rule, is thirty years; a mare's is, as a rule, twenty-five years, though some have already lived as long as forty. Males live a shorter time than females because of the strain of mating, and horses kept privately live a shorter time than those kept in herds. A mare reaches her full length and height at five years, a stallion at six; and after this, over another six years, it fills out in bulk of body, and continues to grow until twenty. Females reach their full development earlier than males, but in the womb it is the males that develop before the females, just as with human beings; and the same thing happens with the other animals that bear several young at a time. They say a mule is suckled for six months and thereafter is no longer let nurse, because it strains and hurts the mother; a horse is suckled for a longer time. Both the horse and the mule reach their prime after they have shed their teeth,

67| but once they have shed them all, it is not easy to tell their age. That is why people say a horse still 'has judgment' as long as it has not yet shed its teeth, and no longer has it once it has shed them. All the same, age is best recognized after the shedding by the canine tooth: in horses that are ridden, this tooth becomes small through the wearing action of the bit (since the bit is fitted against it); in those not ridden it is large but hangs loose; in young horses it is sharp and small. The male mounts at any season and as long as he lives; the female too is mounted as long as she lives, but not yet at any season, unless some restraint or other compulsion is applied to her; no particular season is excluded, by any fixed rule, from either mounting or being mounted. Still, when mating occurs at just any chance time, the parents are not able to raise properly whatever offspring result. In Opus, in a horse-herd, there was a horse that was still mounting mares at forty years old; but it needed help lifting its forelegs to do so. Mares begin to be mounted in spring. When a mare has given birth, she does not conceive again right away but lets time pass, and bears a better foal in the fourth or fifth year after the birth. She must let a full year go by without breeding at all, treating it, so to speak, like fallow ground.

68| A mare, then, bears at intervals, as has been said, whereas a donkey bears continuously. Some mares are entirely barren, while others conceive but are unable to carry to term; the sign given for such cases is that when the embryo is cut open it is found to have extra kidney-like growths around its kidneys, so that it appears to have four kidneys. When a mare has given birth, she at once eats the afterbirth, and also eats away the growth on the foal's forehead, which is called the hippomanes; it is somewhat smaller than a dried fig in size, flat, round, and black in shape. If someone gets hold of this before the mare does and she smells it, she goes wild and is driven frantic by the scent; this is why sorceresses hunt for it and gather it up. If a mare that has already been covered by a stallion is then mounted by a donkey, the donkey destroys the embryo already present. Horse-breeders do not appoint a leader for their horses, as they do for cattle, because the nature of horses is not settled but quick and easily stirred to movement.

69| A donkey mounts and is mounted at thirty months, and sheds its first teeth then; it sheds the second set in the sixth month after, and the third and fourth sets likewise; the fourth set they call the 'markers.' There has even been a case of a one-year-old female donkey conceiving, and the foal was successfully raised. When mounted, a female donkey urinates out the seed unless she is prevented; that is why after mating people at once strike her and drive her forward. She gives birth in the twelfth month. For the most part she bears one foal, since she is by nature a single-bearer, but sometimes she bears two. A male donkey mounting a mare destroys the stallion's seed already present, as has been said; but a stallion mounting a female donkey does not destroy the donkey's seed, when the female donkey has already been covered by the donkey. A female donkey has milk once she is ten months pregnant. After giving birth she is put to the male again on the seventh day, and it is on being covered on that particular day that she most readily takes the seed, though she can also conceive later. But if she has not given birth before she loses her 'marker' teeth, she no longer takes the seed nor conceives for the rest of her life at all. She refuses to give birth either while being watched by a person or in the light, but is led away into darkness whenever she is about to give birth. And she goes on bearing young throughout her life, provided she has given birth before losing her 'marker' teeth.

70| The donkey lives more than thirty years, and the female more years than the male. When a horse mounts a donkey, or a donkey mounts a horse, the female miscarries far more often than when animals of the same kind mate with each other, as when horse mates with horse or donkey with donkey. And the length of gestation, when horse and donkey are crossed, comes out according to the male — I mean, the same length of time it takes when the offspring is produced from animals of that same kind. But the size of the body, the form, and the strength of the offspring resemble the female more. If they are mated continuously and no interval of time is allowed between such matings, the female quickly becomes barren; this is why those who work at this business do not mate them continuously in this way, but let some time pass in between. Neither does the mare accept the donkey, nor the she-donkey the horse, unless the donkey happens to have been suckled by a mare; for breeders deliberately foster such donkeys on purpose, calling them "horse-suckled." These then mount and mate in the pasture, overpowering the mares by force, just as horses do.

71| The male mule mounts and mates after his first attempt, and by seven years old he also impregnates successfully — indeed a "ginnos" has already resulted when he mounted a mare — but afterward he no longer mounts. And the female mule, too, has already conceived, though not so as to carry the young to full term. But the female mules in the part of Syria above Phoenicia both mate and give birth; yet this is a different kind, though a similar one. Those called "ginnoi" arise from a mare when she falls ill during pregnancy, just as among humans there are dwarfs, and among pigs the runts; and the ginnos, like a dwarf, has large genitals. The mule lives many years; indeed one is known to have lived as much as eighty years, as happened at Athens at the time they were building the temple. This mule, though already released from work on account of old age, still joined in hauling and walked alongside the teams, spurring them on to their labor, so that the grain-dealers voted not to drive it away from their stalls. The female mule ages more slowly than the male. Some say the reason is that the female purges herself by urinating, while the male, from smelling the urine, ages faster. The generation of these animals, then, takes place in this manner.

72| Those who tend quadrupeds distinguish the young ones from the old as follows: if the skin, pulled up from the jaw, quickly falls back into place, the quadruped is young; but if it stays wrinkled for a long time, it is old. The camel is pregnant for ten months, and always bears only one; for it is a single-bearing animal. Breeders wean the offspring from the camels at a year old. It lives a long time, more than fifty years. It gives birth in spring, and has milk until it conceives again. Its meat and its milk are the sweetest of all; people drink the milk mixed with water, two parts milk to one of water, or three to one. The elephant first mates and is mated at twenty years old. When the female is mated, she carries in her womb, as some say, a year and six months, but according to others, three years; the reason the time is not agreed upon is that the mating is not easy to observe. The female gives birth crouching down on her hindquarters, and is visibly in pain. When the calf is born, it suckles with its mouth and not with its trunk, and it walks and sees as soon as it is born.

73| Wild sows mate at the beginning of winter, and give birth in spring, withdrawing to the most impassable places, especially those that are precipitous, ravine-cut, and shaded. The male stays among the sows for the most part thirty days. The number of young born and the length of gestation are the same as for domestic pigs. Their cries are similar to those of domestic pigs, except that the female cries more, and the male rarely. Among wild males, the castrated ones grow larger and fiercer, as Homer too composed: "reared a fierce, solitary wild boar; and he was not like a grain-eating beast, but like a wooded crag." They become castrated because, while still young, a disease — an itching — attacks their testicles; then, rubbing themselves against trees, they squeeze their testicles out.

74| The deer mates, as was said before, mostly by pursuit (for the female often will not submit to the male, because of his violence), yet sometimes they do submit and are mated, just as sheep are; and when they are in heat, they turn aside from one another. The male changes partners and does not stay with one, but after a brief interval approaches others. The mating occurs after the rising of Arcturus, around the months of Boedromion and Maimakterion. She is pregnant for eight months; conception occurs within a few days, and many females by a single male. For the most part she bears one, but a few have already been observed bearing two. And she gives birth beside roads, out of fear of wild beasts. The growth of the fawns is rapid. Discharge does not occur in deer at other times, but when they give birth a phlegm-like discharge occurs in them. It is their custom to lead the fawns to their lairs; this place serves them as a refuge, a rock broken off on every side with a single entrance, where the mother is even accustomed to fight off attackers. Concerning its lifespan, legend has it that it is long-lived, but nothing in what is told proves clear, and both the gestation and the growth of the fawns occur in a way inconsistent with the animal being long-lived.

75| On the mountain called Elaphoeis, which is in Asia on Arginusa, where Alcibiades died, all the deer have split ears, so that even if they wander elsewhere they can be recognized by this; and the embryos, while still in the womb, already bear this mark. The females have four teats, like cows. When the females have been satisfied, the males separate off by themselves, and because of their sexual urge each one, alone, digs pits and stinks like billy-goats; and their faces turn black from being spattered, just like those of goats. They live like this until rain comes; after that they turn to grazing. The animal does this because it is lustful by nature and because of its fatness; for their fatness becomes excessive by summer, and so they cannot run, but are caught by pursuers on foot on the second or third chase, and because of the heat and their panting they flee into water. During the season when they mate, their flesh becomes poor and foul-smelling, just as that of goats does. In winter they become thin and weak, but toward spring they are at their peak for running.

76| While fleeing, they make pauses in their running, and stop and wait until the pursuer comes close; then they flee again. They seem to do this because their insides are in pain; for their intestine is so thin and weak that if one strikes it even gently, it is cut through while the skin remains sound. Bears mate, as was said before, not by mounting but lying down on the ground. The bear is pregnant for thirty days. She bears one or two, and at most five. She bears the smallest offspring in proportion to her own body of any animal; for what she bears is smaller than a weasel's young and larger than a mouse's, and it is bare and blind, and its legs and most of its parts are practically without joints. She mates in the month of Elaphebolion, and gives birth around the time of denning. So around this time both the female and the male are at their fattest; and when she has finished rearing the cub, in the third month, they come out already in spring. The porcupine, too, dens up and is pregnant for the same number of days, and in other respects is like the bear. It is a difficult task to catch a pregnant bear.

77| That the lion mounts from behind and is a back-mounter has been said before. It mounts and gives birth not in every season, but once each year. It gives birth in spring, and for the most part bears two, though the most it bears is six; sometimes it bears only one. The story told about its casting out its womb in giving birth is nonsense, put together because lions are rare, the one who made up the story being at a loss for the real cause. For the lion's kind is rare and is not found in many places, but of all Europe only in the region between the Achelous and the Nessus rivers. And the lion gives birth to young so very small that at two months old they can barely walk. The lions in Syria give birth five times, the first time to five cubs, then always one fewer each time; after that they no longer give birth at all, but remain barren for the rest of their lives. The lioness has no mane, only the male lion does. The lion sheds only the teeth called canines, four in number, two above and two below; it sheds them at six months of age.

78| The hyena is wolf-colored, but shaggier, and has a mane running down its whole spine. As for what is said about its genitals, that it has both those of a male and those of a female, this is false. Rather, it has the male organ resembling that of wolves and dogs, while what is thought to be the female organ is below the tail and similar in shape to that of the female, but it has no passage at all; below it is the passage for the residue. The female hyena also has something resembling what is called the female genital organ, and has it, like the male, below the tail, but it has no passage there; after this comes the passage for the residue, and below that the true genital organ. The female hyena also has a womb, as do all other female animals of that kind. It is rare to catch a female hyena; at any rate one hunter said that out of eleven he caught, only one was female. Hares mount by coming together from behind, as has been said before (for it is a back-mounter), and they mount and give birth in every season, and conceive again while already pregnant, and give birth every month. They do not give birth all at once, but pause for however many days happen to intervene. The female has milk before giving birth, and mounts again immediately after giving birth, and conceives again while still nursing; the milk is similar in thickness to that of pigs. It gives birth to blind young, as do most of the many-toed animals.

79| The fox mounts by climbing on top, and gives birth as the bear does, and its young are even more unformed. When it is about to give birth it moves away to such remote places that it is rare to catch one pregnant. When it has given birth, it warms and finishes off the young by licking them with its tongue. It gives birth to at most four.

80| The wolf conceives and gives birth like the dog, both in the time required and in the number of young produced, and gives birth to blind young as the dog does; it mounts and is mounted at one particular season, and gives birth at the start of summer. There is a story told about its giving birth that is tied to a myth; for they say that all wolves give birth within twelve days of the year. They give the cause of this in the myth, saying that in that many days they escorted Leto from the Hyperboreans to Delos, she appearing as a she-wolf out of fear of Hera. Whether this really is the length of the gestation period or not has not yet been established with certainty up to now, but is only what is said. Nor does what is said appear to be true, that wolves give birth only once in their lifetime. Cats and ichneumons give birth to as many young as dogs do, and are raised on the same food; they live about six years. The panther too gives birth to blind young like the wolf, bearing at most four in number. Jackals likewise conceive like dogs, and give birth to blind young; they give birth to two, three, or four in number. In shape the jackal is long in the tail but shorter in height. It is likewise remarkable for speed, even though its legs are short, because it is supple, and it leaps a great distance.

81| In Syria there are the animals called mules, a different kind from those produced by the mating of horse and donkey, resembling them in appearance, just as wild donkeys resemble tame ones, being named from a certain resemblance. These, like the wild donkeys, differing in speed. These mules breed offspring from one another. Here is the evidence: some came to Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces the father of Pharnabazus, and they still survive there today. There are now three of them, though in ancient times there were nine, as they say.

82| The reproduction of mice is the most amazing of all animals in both quantity and speed. For once when a pregnant female was shut up in a jar of millet, when the jar was opened a little later, a hundred and twenty mice in number appeared. It is also a puzzle both how mice come to overrun certain regions and how they then die off; for in many places an untold multitude of field mice is apt to arise, so that almost the whole crop of grain is left destroyed. Their destruction happens so fast that some of those who do not farm on a large scale, having seen the day before that it was harvest time, on the next day at dawn lead out their reapers and find everything already eaten up. Their disappearance does not happen in proportion to their increase; for within a few days they vanish completely, even though in earlier times people could not get the better of them by fumigating and digging them out, nor even by hunting them and setting pigs on them, for pigs dig up their burrows. Foxes also hunt them, and wild weasels destroy them most of all when they come upon them; but even these cannot get the better of their great fertility and rapid breeding, nor can anything else except heavy rains, when these occur; then the mice disappear quickly. In a certain place in Persia, when the female is cut open, the female embryos inside are found to be already pregnant. Some also claim and insist that if mice lick salt they become pregnant without mating. The mice in Egypt have hard hair like land hedgehogs. There are also others that walk on their two hind feet, for they have small forelegs and large hind legs; these occur in great numbers. There are also many other kinds of mice.

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