Bot-S: The Complete Works of Aristotle

For
the elephant has two breasts in the region of the axillae; and the female elephant has two breasts insignificant
in size and in no way proportionate to the bulk of the entire frame, in fact, so insignificant as to be invisible in
a sideways view; the males also have breasts, like the females, exceedingly small. The she-bear has four
breasts. Some animals have two breasts, but situated near the thighs, and teats, likewise two in number, as the
sheep; others have four teats, as the cow. Some have breasts neither in the chest nor at the thighs, but in the
belly, as the dog and pig; and they have a considerable number of breasts or dugs, but not all of equal size.
Thus the shepard has four dugs in the belly, the lioness two, and others more. The she-camel, also, has two
dugs and four teats, like the cow. Of solid-hooved animals the males have no dugs, excepting in the case of
males that take after the mother, which phenomenon is observable in horses.

Of male animals the genitals of some are external, as is the case with man, the horse, and most other
creatures; some are internal, as with the dolphin. With those that have the organ externally placed, the organ
in some cases is situated in front, as in the cases already mentioned, and of these some have the organ
detached, both penis and testicles, as man; others have penis and testicles closely attached to the belly, some
more closely, some less; for this organ is not detached in the wild boar nor in the horse.

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

The penis of the elephant resembles that of the horse; compared with the size of the animal it is
disproportionately small; the testicles are not visible, but are concealed inside in the vicinity of the kidneys;
and for this reason the male speedily gives over in the act of intercourse. The genitals of the female are
situated where the udder is in sheep; when she is in heat, she draws the organ back and exposes it externally,
to facilitate the act of intercourse for the male; and the organ opens out to a considerable extent.

With most animals the genitals have the position above assigned; but some animals discharge their urine
backwards, as the lynx, the lion, the camel, and the hare. Male animals differ from one another, as has been
said, in this particular, but all female animals are retromingent: even the female elephant like other animals,
though she has the privy part below the thighs.

In the male organ itself there is a great diversity. For in some cases the organ is composed of flesh and gristle,
as in man; in such cases, the fleshy part does not become inflated, but the gristly part is subject to
enlargement. In other cases, the organ is composed of fibrous tissue, as with the camel and the deer; in other
cases it is bony, as with the fox, the wolf, the marten, and the weasel; for this organ in the weasel has a bone.

When man has arrived at maturity, his upper part is smaller than the lower one, but with all other blooded
animals the reverse holds good. By the 'upper' part we mean all extending from the head down to the parts
used for excretion of residuum, and by the 'lower' part else. With animals that have feet the hind legs are to be
rated as the lower part in our comparison of magnitudes, and with animals devoid of feet, the tail, and the
like.

When animals arrive at maturity, their properties are as above stated; but they differ greatly from one another
in their growth towards maturity. For instance, man, when young, has his upper part larger than the lower, but
in course of growth he comes to reverse this condition; and it is owing to this circumstance that-an
exceptional instance, by the way-he does not progress in early life as he does at maturity, but in infancy
creeps on all fours; but some animals, in growth, retain the relative proportion of the parts, as the dog. Some
animals at first have the upper part smaller and the lower part larger, and in course of growth the upper part
gets to be the larger, as is the case with the bushy-tailed animals such as the horse; for in their case there is
never, subsequently to birth, any increase in the part extending from the hoof to the haunch.

Again, in respect to the teeth, animals differ greatly both from one another and from man. All animals that are
quadrupedal, blooded and viviparous, are furnished with teeth; but, to begin with, some are double-toothed
(or fully furnished with teeth in both jaws), and some are not. For instance, horned quadrupeds are not
double- toothed; for they have not got the front teeth in the upper jaw; and some hornless animals, also, are
not double toothed, as the camel. Some animals have tusks, like the boar, and some have not. Further, some
animals are saw-toothed, such as the lion, the pard, and the dog; and some have teeth that do not interlock
but have flat opposing crowns, as the horse and the ox; and by 'saw-toothed' we mean such animals as
interlock the sharp-pointed teeth in one jaw between the sharp-pointed ones in the other. No animal is there
that possesses both tusks and horns, nor yet do either of these structures exist in any animal possessed of
'saw-teeth'. The front teeth are usually sharp, and the back ones blunt. The seal is saw-toothed throughout,
inasmuch as he is a sort of link with the class of fishes; for fishes are almost all saw-toothed.

No animal of these genera is provided with double rows of teeth. There is, however, an animal of the sort, if
we are to believe Ctesias. He assures us that the Indian wild beast called the 'martichoras' has a triple row of
teeth in both upper and lower jaw; that it is as big as a lion and equally hairy, and that its feet resemble those
of the lion; that it resembles man in its face and ears; that its eyes are blue, and its colour vermilion; that its
tail is like that of the land-scorpion; that it has a sting in the tail, and has the faculty of shooting off
arrow-wise the spines that are attached to the tail; that the sound of its voice is a something between the
sound of a pan-pipe and that of a trumpet; that it can run as swiftly as deer, and that it is savage and a
man-eater.

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Man sheds his teeth, and so do other animals, as the horse, the mule, and the ass. And man sheds his front
teeth; but there is no instance of an animal that sheds its molars. The pig sheds none of its teeth at all.

With regard to dogs some doubts are entertained, as some contend that they shed no teeth whatever, and
others that they shed the canines, but those alone; the fact being, that they do shed their teeth like man, but
that the circumstance escapes observation, owing to the fact that they never shed them until equivalent teeth
have grown within the gums to take the place of the shed ones. We shall be justified in supposing that the
case is similar with wild beasts in general; for they are said to shed their canines only. Dogs can be
distinguished from one another, the young from the old, by their teeth; for the teeth in young dogs are white
and sharp-pointed; in old dogs, black and blunt.

In this particular, the horse differs entirely from animals in general: for, generally speaking, as animals grow
older their teeth get blacker, but the horse's teeth grow whiter with age.

The so-called 'canines' come in between the sharp teeth and the broad or blunt ones, partaking of the form of
both kinds; for they are broad at the base and sharp at the tip.

Males have more teeth than females in the case of men, sheep, goats, and swine; in the case of other animals
observations have not yet been made: but the more teeth they have the more long-lived are they, as a rule,
while those are short-lived in proportion that have teeth fewer in number and thinly set.

The last teeth to come in man are molars called 'wisdom-teeth', which come at the age of twenty years, in the
case of both sexes. Cases have been known in women upwards, of eighty years old where at the very close of
life the wisdom-teeth have come up, causing great pain in their coming; and cases have been known of the
like phenomenon in men too. This happens, when it does happen, in the case of people where the
wisdom-teeth have not come up in early years.

The elephant has four teeth on either side, by which it munches its food, grinding it like so much
barley-meal, and, quite apart from these, it has its great teeth, or tusks, two in number. In the male these
tusks are comparatively large and curved upwards; in the female, they are comparatively small and point in
the opposite direction; that is, they look downwards towards the ground. The elephant is furnished with teeth
at birth, but the tusks are not then visible.

The tongue of the elephant is exceedingly small, and situated far back in the mouth, so that it is difficult to
get a sight of it.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

Furthermore, animals differ from one another in the relative size of their mouths. In some animals the mouth
opens wide, as is the case with the dog, the lion, and with all the saw-toothed animals; other animals have
small mouths, as man; and others have mouths of medium capacity, as the pig and his congeners.

(The Egyptian hippopotamus has a mane like a horse, is cloven-footed like an ox, and is snub-nosed. It has a
huckle-bone like cloven-footed animals, and tusks just visible; it has the tail of a pig, the neigh of a horse,
and the dimensions of an ass. The hide is so thick that spears are made out of it. In its internal organs it
resembles the horse and the ass.)

Some animals share the properties of man and the quadrupeds, as the ape, the monkey, and the baboon. The
monkey is a tailed ape. The baboon resembles the ape in form, only that it is bigger and stronger, more like a
dog in face, and is more savage in its habits, and its teeth are more dog-like and more powerful.

Apes are hairy on the back in keeping with their quadrupedal nature, and hairy on the belly in keeping with
their human form-for, as was said above, this characteristic is reversed in man and the quadruped-only that
the hair is coarse, so that the ape is thickly coated both on the belly and on the back. Its face resembles that of
man in many respects; in other words, it has similar nostrils and ears, and teeth like those of man, both front
teeth and molars. Further, whereas quadrupeds in general are not furnished with lashes on one of the two
eyelids, this creature has them on both, only very thinly set, especially the under ones; in fact they are very
insignificant indeed. And we must bear in mind that all other quadrupeds have no under eyelash at all.

The ape has also in its chest two teats upon poorly developed breasts. It has also arms like man, only covered
with hair, and it bends these legs like man, with the convexities of both limbs facing one another. In addition,
it has hands and fingers and nails like man, only that all these parts are somewhat more beast-like in
appearance. Its feet are exceptional in kind. That is, they are like large hands, and the toes are like fingers,
with the middle one the longest of all, and the under part of the foot is like a hand except for its length, and
stretches out towards the extremities like the palm of the hand; and this palm at the after end is unusually
hard, and in a clumsy obscure kind of way resembles a heel. The creature uses its feet either as hands or feet,
and doubles them up as one doubles a fist. Its upper-arm and thigh are short in proportion to the forearm and
the shin. It has no projecting navel, but only a hardness in the ordinary locality of the navel. Its upper part is
much larger than its lower part, as is the case with quadrupeds; in fact, the proportion of the former to the
latter is about as five to three. Owing to this circumstance and to the fact that its feet resemble hands and are
composed in a manner of hand and of foot: of foot in the heel extremity, of the hand in all else-for even the
toes have what is called a 'palm':-for these reasons the animal is oftener to be found on all fours than upright.
It has neither hips, inasmuch as it is a quadruped, nor yet a tail, inasmuch as it is a biped, except nor yet a tal
by the way that it has a tail as small as small can be, just a sort of indication of a tail. The genitals of the
female resemble those of the female in the human species; those of the male are more like those of a dog than
are those of a man.

The monkey, as has been observed, is furnished with a tail. In all such creatures the internal organs are found
under dissection to correspond to those of man.

So much then for the properties of the organs of such animals as bring forth their young into the world alive.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

Oviparous and blooded quadrupeds-and, by the way, no terrestrial blooded animal is oviparous unless it is
quadrupedal or is devoid of feet altogether-are furnished with a head, a neck, a back, upper and under parts,
the front legs and hind legs, and the part analogous to the chest, all as in the case of viviparous quadrupeds,
and with a tail, usually large, in exceptional cases small. And all these creatures are many-toed, and the
several toes are cloven apart. Furthermore, they all have the ordinary organs of sensation, including a tongue,
with the exception of the Egyptian crocodile.

This latter animal, by the way, resembles certain fishes. For, as a general rule, fishes have a prickly tongue,
not free in its movements; though there are some fishes that present a smooth undifferentiated surface where
the tongue should be, until you open their mouths wide and make a close inspection.

Again, oviparous blooded quadrupeds are unprovided with ears, but possess only the passage for hearing;
neither have they breasts, nor a copulatory organ, nor external testicles, but internal ones only; neither are
they hair coated, but are in all cases covered with scaly plates. Moreover, they are without exception
saw-toothed.

River crocodiles have pigs' eyes, large teeth and tusks, and strong nails, and an impenetrable skin composed
of scaly plates. They see but poorly under water, but above the surface of it with remarkable acuteness. As a
rule, they pass the day-time on land and the nighttime in the water; for the temperature of the water is at
night-time more genial than that of the open air.

The chameleon resembles the lizard in the general configuration of its body, but the ribs stretch downwards
and meet together under the belly as is the case with fishes, and the spine sticks up as with the fish. Its face
resembles that of the baboon. Its tail is exceedingly long, terminates in a sharp point, and is for the most part
coiled up, like a strap of leather. It stands higher off the ground than the lizard, but the flexure of the legs is
the same in both creatures. Each of its feet is divided into two parts, which bear the same relation to one
another that the thumb and the rest of the hand bear to one another in man. Each of these parts is for a short
distance divided after a fashion into toes; on the front feet the inside part is divided into three and the outside
into two, on the hind feet the inside part into two and the outside into three; it has claws also on these parts
resembling those of birds of prey. Its body is rough all over, like that of the crocodile. Its eyes are situated in
a hollow recess, and are very large and round, and are enveloped in a skin resembling that which covers the
entire body; and in the middle a slight aperture is left for vision, through which the animal sees, for it never
covers up this aperture with the cutaneous envelope. It keeps twisting its eyes round and shifting its line of
vision in every direction, and thus contrives to get a sight of any object that it wants to see. The change in its
colour takes place when it is inflated with air; it is then black, not unlike the crocodile, or green like the lizard
but black-spotted like the pard. This change of colour takes place over the whole body alike, for the eyes and
the tail come alike under its influence. In its movements it is very sluggish, like the tortoise. It assumes a
greenish hue in dying, and retains this hue after death. It resembles the lizard in the position of the
oesophagus and the windpipe. It has no flesh anywhere except a few scraps of flesh on the head and on the
jaws and near to the root of the tail. It has blood only round about the heart, the eyes, the region above the
heart, and in all the veins extending from these parts; and in all these there is but little blood after all. The
brain is situated a little above the eyes, but connected with them. When the outer skin is drawn aside from off
the eye, a something is found surrounding the eye, that gleams through like a thin ring of copper. Membranes
extend well nigh over its entire frame, numerous and strong, and surpassing in respect of number and relative
strength those found in any other animal. After being cut open along its entire length it continues to breathe
for a considerable time; a very slight motion goes on in the region of the heart, and, while contraction is

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

especially manifested in the neighbourhood of the ribs, a similar motion is more or less discernible over the
whole body. It has no spleen visible. It hibernates, like the lizard.

Birds also in some parts resemble the above mentioned animals; that is to say, they have in all cases a head, a
neck, a back, a belly, and what is analogous to the chest. The bird is remarkable among animals as having
two feet, like man; only, by the way, it bends them backwards as quadrupeds bend their hind legs, as was
noticed previously. It has neither hands nor front feet, but wings-an exceptional structure as compared with
other animals. Its haunch-bone is long, like a thigh, and is attached to the body as far as the middle of the
belly; so like to a thigh is it that when viewed separately it looks like a real one, while the real thigh is a
separate structure betwixt it and the shin. Of all birds those that have crooked talons have the biggest thighs
and the strongest breasts. All birds are furnished with many claws, and all have the toes separated more or
less asunder; that is to say, in the greater part the toes are clearly distinct from one another, for even the
swimming birds, although they are web-footed, have still their claws fully articulated and distinctly
differentiated from one another. Birds that fly high in air are in all cases four-toed: that is, the greater part
have three toes in front and one behind in place of a heel; some few have two in front and two behind, as the
wryneck.

This latter bird is somewhat bigger than the chaffinch, and is mottled in appearance. It is peculiar in the
arrangement of its toes, and resembles the snake in the structure of its tongue; for the creature can protrude its
tongue to the extent of four finger-breadths, and then draw it back again. Moreover, it can twist its head
backwards while keeping all the rest of its body still, like the serpent. It has big claws, somewhat resembling
those of the woodpecker. Its note is a shrill chirp.

Birds are furnished with a mouth, but with an exceptional one, for they have neither lips nor teeth, but a beak.
Neither have they ears nor a nose, but only passages for the sensations connected with these organs: that for
the nostrils in the beak, and that for hearing in the head. Like all other animals they all have two eyes, and
these are devoid of lashes. The heavy-bodied (or gallinaceous) birds close the eye by means of the lower lid,
and all birds blink by means of a skin extending over the eye from the inner corner; the owl and its congeners
also close the eye by means of the upper lid. The same phenomenon is observable in the animals that are
protected by horny scutes, as in the lizard and its congeners; for they all without exception close the eye with
the lower lid, but they do not blink like birds. Further, birds have neither scutes nor hair, but feathers; and the
feathers are invariably furnished with quills. They have no tail, but a rump with tail-feathers, short in such as
are long-legged and web-footed, large in others. These latter kinds of birds fly with their feet tucked up
close to the belly; but the small rumped or short-tailed birds fly with their legs stretched out at full length.
All are furnished with a tongue, but the organ is variable, being long in some birds and broad in others.
Certain species of birds above all other animals, and next after man, possess the faculty of uttering articulate
sounds; and this faculty is chiefly developed in broad-tongued birds. No oviparous creature has an epiglottis
over the windpipe, but these animals so manage the opening and shutting of the windpipe as not to allow any
solid substance to get down into the lung.

Some species of birds are furnished additionally with spurs, but no bird with crooked talons is found so
provided. The birds with talons are among those that fly well, but those that have spurs are among the
heavy-bodied.

Again, some birds have a crest. As a general rule the crest sticks up, and is composed of feathers only; but the
crest of the barn-door cock is exceptional in kind, for, whereas it is not just exactly flesh, at the same time it
is not easy to say what else it is.

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

Of water animals the genus of fishes constitutes a single group apart from the rest, and including many
diverse forms.

In the first place, the fish has a head, a back, a belly, in the neighbourhood of which last are placed the
stomach and viscera; and behind it has a tail of continuous, undivided shape, but not, by the way, in all cases
alike. No fish has a neck, or any limb, or testicles at all, within or without, or breasts. But, by the way this
absence of breasts may predicated of all non-viviparous animals; and in point of fact viviparous animals are
not in all cases provided with the organ, excepting such as are directly viviparous without being first
oviparous. Thus the dolphin is directly viviparous, and accordingly we find it furnished with two breasts, not
situated high up, but in the neighbourhood of the genitals. And this creature is not provided, like quadrupeds,
with visible teats, but has two vents, one on each flank, from which the milk flows; and its young have to
follow after it to get suckled, and this phenomenon has been actually witnessed.

Fishes, then, as has been observed, have no breasts and no passage for the genitals visible externally. But they
have an exceptional organ in the gills, whereby, after taking the water in the mouth, they discharge it again;
and in the fins, of which the greater part have four, and the lanky ones two, as, for instance, the eel, and these
two situated near to the gills. In like manner the grey mullet-as, for instance, the mullet found in the lake at
Siphae-have only two fins; and the same is the case with the fish called Ribbon-fish. Some of the lanky
fishes have no fins at all, such as the muraena, nor gills articulated like those of other fish.

And of those fish that are provided with gills, some have coverings for this organ, whereas all the selachians
have the organ unprotected by a cover. And those fishes that have coverings or opercula for the gills have in
all cases their gills placed sideways; whereas, among selachians, the broad ones have the gills down below on
the belly, as the torpedo and the ray, while the lanky ones have the organ placed sideways, as is the case in all
the dog-fish.

The fishing-frog has gills placed sideways, and covered not with a spiny operculum, as in all but the
selachian fishes, but with one of skin.

Morever, with fishes furnished with gills, the gills in some cases are simple in others duplicate; and the last
gill in the direction of the body is always simple. And, again, some fishes have few gills, and others have a
great number; but all alike have the same number on both sides. Those that have the least number have one
gill on either side, and this one duplicate, like the boar-fish; others have two on either side, one simple and
the other duplicate, like the conger and the scarus; others have four on either side, simple, as the elops, the
synagris, the muraena, and the eel; others have four, all, with the exception of the hindmost one, in double
rows, as the wrasse, the perch, the sheat-fish, and the carp. The dog-fish have all their gills double, five on a
side; and the sword-fish has eight double gills. So much for the number of gills as found in fishes.

Again, fishes differ from other animals in more ways than as regards the gills. For they are not covered with
hairs as are viviparous land animals, nor, as is the case with certain oviparous quadrupeds, with tessellated
scutes, nor, like birds, with feathers; but for the most part they are covered with scales. Some few are
rough-skinned, while the smooth-skinned are very few indeed. Of the Selachia some are rough-skinned and
some smooth-skinned; and among the smooth-skinned fishes are included the conger, the eel, and the tunny.

All fishes are saw-toothed excepting the scarus; and the teeth in all cases are sharp and set in many rows, and
in some cases are placed on the tongue. The tongue is hard and spiny, and so firmly attached that fishes in
many instances seem to be devoid of the organ altogether. The mouth in some cases is wide-stretched, as it is
with some viviparous quadrupeds....

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

With regard to organs of sense, all save eyes, fishes possess none of them, neither the organs nor their
passages, neither ears nor nostrils; but all fishes are furnished with eyes, and the eyes devoid of lids, though
the eyes are not hard; with regard to the organs connected with the other senses, hearing and smell, they are
devoid alike of the organs themselves and of passages indicative of them.

Fishes without exception are supplied with blood. Some of them are oviparous, and some viviparous; scaly
fish are invariably oviparous, but cartilaginous fishes are all viviparous, with the single exception of the
fishing-frog.

Of blooded animals there now remains the serpent genus. This genus is common to both elements, for, while
most species comprehended therein are land animals, a small minority, to wit the aquatic species, pass their
lives in fresh water. There are also sea-serpents, in shape to a great extent resembling their congeners of the
land, with this exception that the head in their case is somewhat like the head of the conger; and there are
several kinds of sea-serpent, and the different kinds differ in colour; these animals are not found in very deep
water. Serpents, like fish, are devoid of feet.

There are also sea-scolopendras, resembling in shape their land congeners, but somewhat less in regard to
magnitude. These creatures are found in the neighbourhood of rocks; as compared with their land congeners
they are redder in colour, are furnished with feet in greater numbers and with legs of more delicate structure.
And the same remark applies to them as to the sea-serpents, that they are not found in very deep water.

Of fishes whose habitat is in the vicinity of rocks there is a tiny one, which some call the Echeneis, or
'ship-holder', and which is by some people used as a charm to bring luck in affairs of law and love. The
creature is unfit for eating. Some people assert that it has feet, but this is not the case: it appears, however, to
be furnished with feet from the fact that its fins resemble those organs.

So much, then, for the external parts of blooded animals, as regards their numbers, their properties, and their
relative diversities.

As for the properties of the internal organs, these we must first discuss in the case of the animals that are
supplied with blood. For the principal genera differ from the rest of animals, in that the former are supplied
with blood and the latter are not; and the former include man, viviparous and oviparous quadrupeds, birds,
fishes, cetaceans, and all the others that come under no general designation by reason of their not forming
genera, but groups of which simply the specific name is predicable, as when we say 'the serpent,' the
'crocodile'.

All viviparous quadrupeds, then, are furnished with an oesophagus and a windpipe, situated as in man; the
same statement is applicable to oviparous quadrupeds and to birds, only that the latter present diversities in
the shapes of these organs. As a general rule, all animals that take up air and breathe it in and out are
furnished with a lung, a windpipe, and an oesophagus, with the windpipe and oesophagus not admitting of
diversity in situation but admitting of diversity in properties, and with the lung admitting of diversity in both
these respects. Further, all blooded animals have a heart and a diaphragm or midriff; but in small animals the
existence of the latter organ is not so obvious owing to its delicacy and minute size.

In regard to the heart there is an exceptional phenomenon observable in oxen. In other words, there is one
species of ox where, though not in all cases, a bone is found inside the heart. And, by the way, the horse's

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heart also has a bone inside it.

The genera referred to above are not in all cases furnished with a lung: for instance, the fish is devoid of the
organ, as is also every animal furnished with gills. All blooded animals are furnished with a liver. As a
general rule blooded animals are furnished with a spleen; but with the great majority of non-viviparous but
oviparous animals the spleen is so small as all but to escape observation; and this is the case with almost all
birds, as with the pigeon, the kite, the falcon, the owl: in point of fact, the aegocephalus is devoid of the organ
altogether. With oviparous quadrupeds the case is much the same as with the viviparous; that is to say, they
also have the spleen exceedingly minute, as the tortoise, the freshwater tortoise, the toad, the lizard, the
crocodile, and the frog.

Some animals have a gall-bladder close to the liver, and others have not. Of viviparous quadrupeds the deer
is without the organ, as also the roe, the horse, the mule, the ass, the seal, and some kinds of pigs. Of deer
those that are called Achainae appear to have gall in their tail, but what is so called does resemble gall in
colour, though it is not so completely fluid, and the organ internally resembles a spleen.

However, without any exception, stags are found to have maggots living inside the head, and the habitat of
these creatures is in the hollow underneath the root of the tongue and in the neighbourhood of the vertebra to
which the head is attached. These creatures are as large as the largest grubs; they grow all together in a
cluster, and they are usually about twenty in number.

Deer then, as has been observed, are without a gall-bladder; their gut, however, is so bitter that even hounds
refuse to eat it unless the animal is exceptionally fat. With the elephant also the liver is unfurnished with a
gall-bladder, but when the animal is cut in the region where the organ is found in animals furnished with it,
there oozes out a fluid resembling gall, in greater or less quantities. Of animals that take in sea-water and are
furnished with a lung, the dolphin is unprovided with a gall-bladder. Birds and fishes all have the organ, as
also oviparous quadrupeds, all to a greater or a lesser extent. But of fishes some have the organ close to the
liver, as the dogfishes, the sheat-fish, the rhine or angel-fish, the smooth skate, the torpedo, and, of the lanky
fishes, the eel, the pipe-fish, and the hammer-headed shark. The callionymus, also, has the gall-bladder
close to the liver, and in no other fish does the organ attain so great a relative size. Other fishes have the
organ close to the gut, attached to the liver by certain extremely fine ducts. The bonito has the gall-bladder
stretched alongside the gut and equalling it in length, and often a double fold of it. others have the organ in
the region of the gut; in some cases far off, in others near; as the fishing-frog, the elops, the synagris, the
muraena, and the sword-fish. Often animals of the same species show this diversity of position; as, for
instance, some congers are found with the organ attached close to the liver, and others with it detached from
and below it. The case is much the same with birds: that is, some have the gall-bladder close to the stomach,
and others close to the gut, as the pigeon, the raven, the quail, the swallow, and the sparrow; some have it
near at once to the liver and to the stomach as the aegocephalus; others have it near at once to the liver and
the gut, as the falcon and the kite.

Again, all viviparous quadrupeds are furnished with kidneys and a bladder. Of the ovipara that are not
quadrupedal there is no instance known of an animal, whether fish or bird, provided with these organs. Of the
ovipara that are quadrupedal, the turtle alone is provided with these organs of a magnitude to correspond with
the other organs of the animal. In the turtle the kidney resembles the same organ in the ox; that is to say, it
looks one single organ composed of a number of small ones. (The bison also resembles the ox in all its
internal parts).

16 32

HISTORY OF ANIMALS
17

With all animals that are furnished with these parts, the parts are similarly situated, and with the exception of
man, the heart is in the middle; in man, however, as has been observed, the heart is placed a little to the
left-hand side. In all animals the pointed end of the heart turns frontwards; only in fish it would at first sight
seem otherwise, for the pointed end is turned not towards the breast, but towards the head and the mouth.
And (in fish) the apex is attached to a tube just where the right and left gills meet together. There are other
ducts extending from the heart to each of the gills, greater in the greater fish, lesser in the lesser; but in the
large fishes the duct at the pointed end of the heart is a tube, white-coloured and exceedingly thick. Fishes in
some few cases have an oesophagus, as the conger and the eel; and in these the organ is small.

In fishes that are furnished with an undivided liver, the organ lies entirely on the right side; where the liver is
cloven from the root, the larger half of the organ is on the right side: for in some fishes the two parts are
detached from one another, without any coalescence at the root, as is the case with the dogfish. And there is
also a species of hare in what is named the Fig district, near Lake Bolbe, and elsewhere, which animal might
be taken to have two livers owing to the length of the connecting ducts, similar to the structure in the lung of
birds.

The spleen in all cases, when normally placed, is on the left-hand side, and the kidneys also lie in the same
position in all creatures that possess them. There have been known instances of quadrupeds under dissection,
where the spleen was on the right hand and the liver on the left; but all such cases are regarded as
supernatural.

In all animals the wind-pipe extends to the lung, and the manner how, we shall discuss hereafter; and the
oesophagus, in all that have the organ, extends through the midriff into the stomach. For, by the way, as has
been observed, most fishes have no oesophagus, but the stomach is united directly with the mouth, so that in
some cases when big fish are pursuing little ones, the stomach tumbles forward into the mouth.

All the afore-mentioned animals have a stomach, and one similarly situated, that is to say, situated directly
under the midriff; and they have a gut connected therewith and closing at the outlet of the residuum and at
what is termed the 'rectum'. However, animals present diversities in the structure of their stomachs. In the
first place, of the viviparous quadrupeds, such of the horned animals as are not equally furnished with teeth in
both jaws are furnished with four such chambers. These animals, by the way, are those that are said to chew
the cud. In these animals the oesophagus extends from the mouth downwards along the lung, from the midriff
to the big stomach (or paunch); and this stomach is rough inside and semi-partitioned. And connected with it
near to the entry of the oesophagus is what from its appearance is termed the 'reticulum' (or honeycomb bag);
for outside it is like the stomach, but inside it resembles a netted cap; and the reticulum is a great deal smaller
than the stomach. Connected with this is the 'echinus' (or many-plies), rough inside and laminated, and of
about the same size as the reticulum. Next after this comes what is called the 'enystrum' (or abomasum),
larger an longer than the echinus, furnished inside with numerous folds or ridges, large and smooth. After all
this comes the gut.

Such is the stomach of those quadrupeds that are horned and have an unsymmetrical dentition; and these
animals differ one from another in the shape and size of the parts, and in the fact of the oesophagus reaching
the stomach centralwise in some cases and sideways in others. Animals that are furnished equally with teeth
in both jaws have one stomach; as man, the pig, the dog, the bear, the lion, the wolf. (The Thos, by the by,
has all its internal organs similar to the wolfs.)

All these, then have a single stomach, and after that the gut; but the stomach in some is comparatively large,
as in the pig and bear, and the stomach of the pig has a few smooth folds or ridges; others have a much

17 33

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

smaller stomach, not much bigger than the gut, as the lion, the dog, and man. In the other animals the shape
of the stomach varies in the direction of one or other of those already mentioned; that is, the stomach in some
animals resembles that of the pig; in others that of the dog, alike with the larger animals and the smaller ones.
In all these animals diversities occur in regard to the size, the shape, the thickness or the thinness of the
stomach, and also in regard to the place where the oesophagus opens into it.

There is also a difference in structure in the gut of the two groups of animals above mentioned (those with
unsymmetrical and those with symmetrical dentition) in size, in thickness, and in foldings.

The intestines in those animals whose jaws are unequally furnished with teeth are in all cases the larger, for
the animals themselves are larger than those in the other category; for very few of them are small, and no
single one of the horned animals is very small. And some possess appendages (or caeca) to the gut, but no
animal that has not incisors in both jaws has a straight gut.

The elephant has a gut constricted into chambers, so constructed that the animal appears to have four
stomachs; in it the food is found, but there is no distinct and separate receptacle. Its viscera resemble those of
the pig, only that the liver is four times the size of that of the ox, and the other viscera in like proportion,
while the spleen is comparatively small.

Much the same may be predicated of the properties of the stomach and the gut in oviparous quadrupeds, as in
the land tortoise, the turtle, the lizard, both crocodiles, and, in fact, in all animals of the like kind; that is to
say, their stomach is one and simple, resembling in some cases that of the pig, and in other cases that of the
dog.

The serpent genus is similar and in almost all respects furnished similarly to the saurians among land animals,
if one could only imagine these saurians to be increased in length and to be devoid of legs. That is to say, the
serpent is coated with tessellated scutes, and resembles the saurian in its back and belly; only, by the way, it
has no testicles, but, like fishes, has two ducts converging into one, and an ovary long and bifurcate. The rest
of its internal organs are identical with those of the saurians, except that, owing to the narrowness and length
of the animal, the viscera are correspondingly narrow and elongated, so that they are apt to escape recognition
from the similarities in shape. Thus, the windpipe of the creature is exceptionally long, and the oesophagus is
longer still, and the windpipe commences so close to the mouth that the tongue appears to be underneath it;
and the windpipe seems to project over the tongue, owing to the fact that the tongue draws back into a sheath
and does not remain in its place as in other animals. The tongue, moreover, is thin and long and black, and
can be protruded to a great distance. And both serpents and saurians have this altogether exceptional property
in the tongue, that it is forked at the outer extremity, and this property is the more marked in the serpent, for
the tips of his tongue are as thin as hairs. The seal, also, by the way, has a split tongue.

The stomach of the serpent is like a more spacious gut, resembling the stomach of the dog; then comes the
gut, long, narrow, and single to the end. The heart is situated close to the pharynx, small and kidney-shaped;
and for this reason the organ might in some cases appear not to have the pointed end turned towards the
breast. Then comes the lung, single, and articulated with a membranous passage, very long, and quite
detached from the heart. The liver is long and simple; the spleen is short and round: as is the case in both
respects with the saurians. Its gall resembles that of the fish; the water-snakes have it beside the liver, and the
other snakes have it usually beside the gut. These creatures are all saw-toothed. Their ribs are as numerous as
the days of the month; in other words, they are thirty in number.

Some affirm that the same phenomenon is observable with serpents as with swallow chicks; in other words,
they say that if you prick out a serpent's eyes they will grow again. And further, the tails of saurians and of
serpents, if they be cut off, will grow again.

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

With fishes the properties of the gut and stomach are similar; that is, they have a stomach single and simple,
but variable in shape according to species. For in some cases the stomach is gut-shaped, as with the scarus,
or parrot-fish; which fish, by the way, appears to be the only fish that chews the cud. And the whole length
of the gut is simple, and if it have a reduplication or kink it loosens out again into a simple form.

An exceptional property in fishes and in birds for the most part is the being furnished with gut-appendages or
caeca. Birds have them low down and few in number. Fishes have them high up about the stomach, and
sometimes numerous, as in the goby, the galeos, the perch, the scorpaena, the citharus, the red mullet, and the
spams; the cestreus or grey mullet has several of them on one side of the belly, and on the other side only
one. Some fish possess these appendages but only in small numbers, as the hepatus and the glaucus; and, by
the way, they are few also in the dorado. These fishes differ also from one another within the same species,
for in the dorado one individual has many and another few. Some fishes are entirely without the part, as the
majority of the selachians. As for all the rest, some of them have a few and some a great many. And in all
cases where the gut-appendages are found in fish, they are found close up to the stomach.

In regard to their internal parts birds differ from other animals and from one another. Some birds, for
instance, have a crop in front of the stomach, as the barn-door cock, the cushat, the pigeon, and the partridge;
and the crop consists of a large hollow skin, into which the food first enters and where it lies ingested. Just
where the crop leaves the oesophagus it is somewhat narrow; by and by it broadens out, but where it
communicates with the stomach it narrows down again. The stomach (or gizzard) in most birds is fleshy and
hard, and inside is a strong skin which comes away from the fleshy part. Other birds have no crop, but instead
of it an oesophagus wide and roomy, either all the way or in the part leading to the stomach, as with the daw,
the raven, and the carrion-crow. The quail also has the oesophagus widened out at the lower extremity, and
in the aegocephalus and the owl the organ is slightly broader at the bottom than at the top. The duck, the
goose, the gull, the catarrhactes, and the great bustard have the oesophagus wide and roomy from one end to
the other, and the same applies to a great many other birds. In some birds there is a portion of the stomach
that resembles a crop, as in the kestrel. In the case of small birds like the swallow and the sparrow neither the
oesophagus nor the crop is wide, but the stomach is long. Some few have neither a crop nor a dilated
oesophagus, but the latter is exceedingly long, as in long necked birds, such as the porphyrio, and, by the
way, in the case of all these birds the excrement is unusually moist. The quail is exceptional in regard to these
organs, as compared with other birds; in other words, it has a crop, and at the same time its oesophagus is
wide and spacious in front of the stomach, and the crop is at some distance, relatively to its size, from the
oesophagus at that part.

Further, in most birds, the gut is thin, and simple when loosened out. The gut-appendages or caeca in birds,
as has been observed, are few in number, and are not situated high up, as in fishes, but low down towards the
extremity of the gut. Birds, then, have caeca-not all, but the greater part of them, such as the barn-door cock,
the partridge, the duck, the night-raven, (the localus,) the ascalaphus, the goose, the swan, the great bustard,
and the owl. Some of the little birds also have these appendages; but the caeca in their case are exceedingly
minute, as in the sparrow.

Book III

Now that we have stated the magnitudes, the properties, and the relative differences of the other internal
organs, it remains for us to treat of the organs that contribute to generation. These organs in the female are in
all cases internal; in the male they present numerous diversities.

Book III 35

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

In the blooded animals some males are altogether devoid of testicles, and some have the organ but situated
internally; and of those males that have the organ internally situated, some have it close to the loin in the
neighbourhood of the kidney and others close to the belly. Other males have the organ situated externally. In
the case of these last, the penis is in some cases attached to the belly, whilst in others it is loosely suspended,
as is the case also with the testicles; and, in the cases where the penis is attached to the belly, the attachment
varies accordingly as the animal is emprosthuretic or opisthuretic.

No fish is furnished with testicles, nor any other creature that has gills, nor any serpent whatever: nor, in
short, any animal devoid of feet, save such only as are viviparous within themselves. Birds are furnished with
testicles, but these are internally situated, close to the loin. The case is similar with oviparous quadrupeds,
such as the lizard, the tortoise and the crocodile; and among the viviparous animals this peculiarity is found
in the hedgehog. Others among those creatures that have the organ internally situated have it close to the
belly, as is the case with the dolphin amongst animals devoid of feet, and with the elephant among viviparous
quadrupeds. In other cases these organs are externally conspicuous.

We have already alluded to the diversities observed in the attachment of these organs to the belly and the
adjacent region; in other words, we have stated that in some cases the testicles are tightly fastened back, as in
the pig and its allies, and that in others they are freely suspended, as in man.

Fishes, then, are devoid of testicles, as has been stated, and serpents also. They are furnished, however, with
two ducts connected with the midriff and running on to either side of the backbone, coalescing into a single
duct above the outlet of the residuum, and by 'above' the outlet I mean the region near to the spine. These
ducts in the rutting season get filled with the genital fluid, and, if the ducts be squeezed, the sperm oozes out
white in colour. As to the differences observed in male fishes of diverse species, the reader should consult my
treatise on Anatomy, and the subject will be hereafter more fully discussed when we describe the specific
character in each case.

The males of oviparous animals, whether biped or quadruped, are in all cases furnished with testicles close to
the loin underneath the midriff. With some animals the organ is whitish, in others somewhat of a sallow hue;
in all cases it is entirely enveloped with minute and delicate veins. From each of the two testicles extends a
duct, and, as in the case of fishes, the two ducts coalesce into one above the outlet of the residuum. This
constitutes the penis, which organ in the case of small ovipara is inconspicuous; but in the case of the larger
ovipara, as in the goose and the like, the organ becomes quite visible just after copulation.

The ducts in the case of fishes and in biped and quadruped ovipara are attached to the loin under the stomach
and the gut, in betwixt them and the great vein, from which ducts or blood-vessels extend, one to each of the
two testicles. And just as with fishes the male sperm is found in the seminal ducts, and the ducts become
plainly visible at the rutting season and in some instances become invisible after the season is passed, so also
is it with the testicles of birds; before the breeding season the organ is small in some birds and quite invisible
in others, but during the season the organ in all cases is greatly enlarged. This phenomenon is remarkably
illustrated in the ring-dove and the partridge, so much so that some people are actually of opinion that these
birds are devoid of the organ in the winter-time.

Of male animals that have their testicles placed frontwards, some have them inside, close to the belly, as the
dolphin; some have them outside, exposed to view, close to the lower extremity of the belly. These animals
resemble one another thus far in respect to this organ; but they differ from one another in this fact, that some
of them have their testicles situated separately by themselves, while others, which have the organ situated
externally, have them enveloped in what is termed the scrotum.

Again, in all viviparous animals furnished with feet the following properties are observed in the testicles
themselves. From the aorta there extend vein-like ducts to the head of each of the testicles, and another two

Book III 36

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

from the kidneys; these two from the kidneys are supplied with blood, while the two from the aorta are
devoid of it. From the head of the testicle alongside of the testicle itself is a duct, thicker and more sinewy
than the other just alluded to-a duct that bends back again at the end of the testicle to its head; and from the
head of each of the two testicles the two ducts extend until they coalesce in front at the penis. The duct that
bends back again and that which is in contact with the testicle are enveloped in one and the same membrane,
so that, until you draw aside the membrane, they present all the appearance of being a single undifferentiated
duct. Further, the duct in contact with the testicle has its moist content qualified by blood, but to a
comparatively less extent than in the case of the ducts higher up which are connected with the aorta; in the
ducts that bend back towards the tube of the penis, the liquid is white-coloured. There also runs a duct from
the bladder, opening into the upper part of the canal, around which lies, sheathwise, what is called the 'penis'.

All these descriptive particulars may be regarded by the light of the accompanying diagram; wherein the
letter A marks the starting-point of the ducts that extend from the aorta; the letters KK mark the heads of the
testicles and the ducts descending thereunto; the ducts extending from these along the testicles are marked
MM; the ducts turning back, in which is the white fluid, are marked BB; the penis D; the bladder E; and the
testicles XX.

(By the way, when the testicles are cut off or removed, the ducts draw upwards by contraction. Moreover,
when male animals are young, their owner sometimes destroys the organ in them by attrition; sometimes they
castrate them at a later period. And I may here add, that a bull has been known to serve a cow immediately
after castration, and actually to impregnate her.)

So much then for the properties of testicles in male animals.

In female animals furnished with a womb, the womb is not in all cases the same in form or endowed with the
same properties, but both in the vivipara and the ovipara great diversities present themselves. In all creatures
that have the womb close to the genitals, the womb is two-horned, and one horn lies to the right-hand side
and the other to the left; its commencement, however, is single, and so is the orifice, resembling in the case of
the most numerous and largest animals a tube composed of much flesh and gristle. Of these parts one is
termed the hystera or delphys, whence is derived the word adelphos, and the other part, the tube or orifice, is
termed metra. In all biped or quadruped vivipara the womb is in all cases below the midriff, as in man, the
dog, the pig, the horse, and the ox; the same is the case also in all horned animals. At the extremity of the
so-called ceratia, or horns, the wombs of most animals have a twist or convolution.

In the case of those ovipara that lay eggs externally, the wombs are not in all cases similarly situated. Thus
the wombs of birds are close to the midriff, and the wombs of fishes down below, just like the wombs of
biped and quadruped vivipara, only that, in the case of the fish, the wombs are delicately formed,
membranous, and elongated; so much so that in extremely small fish, each of the two bifurcated parts looks
like a single egg, and those fishes whose egg is described as crumbling would appear to have inside them a
pair of eggs, whereas in reality each of the two sides consists not of one but of many eggs, and this accounts
for their breaking up into so many particles.

The womb of birds has the lower and tubular portion fleshy and firm, and the part close to the midriff
membranous and exceedingly thin and fine: so thin and fine that the eggs might seem to be outside the womb
altogether. In the larger birds the membrane is more distinctly visible, and, if inflated through the tube, lifts
and swells out; in the smaller birds all these parts are more indistinct.

The properties of the womb are similar in oviparous quadrupeds, as the tortoise, the lizard, the frog and the
like; for the tube below is single and fleshy, and the cleft portion with the eggs is at the top close to the
midriff. With animals devoid of feet that are internally oviparous and viviparous externally, as is the case
with the dogfish and the other so-called Selachians (and by this title we designate such creatures destitute of

Book III 37

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

feet and furnished with gills as are viviparous), with these animals the womb is bifurcate, and beginning
down below it extends as far as the midriff, as in the case of birds. There is also a narrow part between the
two horns running up as far as the midriff, and the eggs are engendered here and above at the origin of the
midriff; afterwards they pass into the wider space and turn from eggs into young animals. However, the
differences in respect to the wombs of these fishes as compared with others of their own species or with
fishes in general, would be more satisfactorily studied in their various forms in specimens under dissection.

The members of the serpent genus also present divergencies either when compared with the
above-mentioned creatures or with one another. Serpents as a rule are oviparous, the viper being the only
viviparous member of the genus. The viper is, previously to external parturition, oviparous internally; and
owing to this perculiarity the properties of the womb in the viper are similar to those of the womb in the
selachians. The womb of the serpent is long, in keeping with the body, and starting below from a single duct
extends continuously on both sides of the spine, so as to give the impression of thus being a separate duct on
each side of the spine, until it reaches the midriff, where the eggs are engendered in a row; and these eggs are
laid not one by one, but all strung together. (And all animals that are viviparous both internally and externally
have the womb situated above the stomach, and all the ovipara underneath, near to the loin. Animals that are
viviparous externally and internally oviparous present an intermediate arrangement; for the underneath
portion of the womb, in which the eggs are, is placed near to the loin, but the part about the orifice is above
the gut.)

Further, there is the following diversity observable in wombs as compared with one another: namely that the
females of horned nonambidental animals are furnished with cotyledons in the womb when they are pregnant,
and such is the case, among ambidentals, with the hare, the mouse, and the bat; whereas all other animals that
are ambidental, viviparous, and furnished with feet, have the womb quite smooth, and in their case the
attachment of the embryo is to the womb itself and not to any cotyledon inside it.

The parts, then, in animals that are not homogeneous with themselves and uniform in their texture, both parts
external and parts internal, have the properties above assigned to them.

In sanguineous animals the homogeneous or uniform part most universally found is the blood, and its habitat
the vein; next in degree of universality, their analogues, lymph and fibre, and, that which chiefly constitutes
the frame of animals, flesh and whatsoever in the several parts is analogous to flesh; then bone, and parts that
are analogous to bone, as fish-bone and gristle; and then, again, skin, membrane, sinew, hair, nails, and
whatever corresponds to these; and, furthermore, fat, suet, and the excretions: and the excretions are dung,
phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.

Now, as the nature of blood and the nature of the veins have all the appearance of being primitive, we must
discuss their properties first of all, and all the more as some previous writers have treated them very
unsatisfactorily. And the cause of the ignorance thus manifested is the extreme difficulty experienced in the
way of observation. For in the dead bodies of animals the nature of the chief veins is undiscoverable, owing
to the fact that they collapse at once when the blood leaves them; for the blood pours out of them in a stream,
like liquid out of a vessel, since there is no blood separately situated by itself, except a little in the heart, but it
is all lodged in the veins. In living animals it is impossible to inspect these parts, for of their very nature they
are situated inside the body and out of sight. For this reason anatomists who have carried on their
investigations on dead bodies in the dissecting room have failed to discover the chief roots of the veins, while
those who have narrowly inspected bodies of living men reduced to extreme attenuation have arrived at
conclusions regarding the origin of the veins from the manifestations visible externally. Of these
investigators, Syennesis, the physician of Cyprus, writes as follows:-

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

'The big veins run thus:-from the navel across the loins, along the back, past the lung, in under the breasts;
one from right to left, and the other from left to right; that from the left, through the liver to the kidney and
the testicle, that from the right, to the spleen and kidney and testicle, and from thence to the penis.' Diogenes
of Apollonia writes thus:-

'The veins in man are as follows :-There are two veins pre-eminent in magnitude. These extend through the
belly along the backbone, one to right, one to left; either one to the leg on its own side, and upwards to the
head, past the collar bones, through the throat. From these, veins extend all over the body, from that on the
right hand to the right side and from that on the left hand to the left side; the most important ones, two in
number, to the heart in the region of the backbone; other two a little higher up through the chest in underneath
the armpit, each to the hand on its side: of these two, one being termed the vein splenitis, and the other the
vein hepatitis. Each of the pair splits at its extremity; the one branches in the direction of the thumb and the
other in the direction of the palm; and from these run off a number of minute veins branching off to the
fingers and to all parts of the hand. Other veins, more minute, extend from the main veins; from that on the
right towards the liver, from that on the left towards the spleen and the kidneys. The veins that run to the legs
split at the juncture of the legs with the trunk and extend right down the thigh. The largest of these goes down
the thigh at the back of it, and can be discerned and traced as a big one; the second one runs inside the thigh,
not quite as big as the one just mentioned. After this they pass on along the knee to the shin and the foot (as
the upper veins were described as passing towards the hands), and arrive at the sole of the foot, and from
thence continue to the toes. Moreover, many delicate veins separate off from the great veins towards the
stomach and towards the ribs.

The veins that run through the throat to the head can be discerned and traced in the neck as large ones; and
from each one of the two, where it terminates, there branch off a number of veins to the head; some from the
right side towards the left, and some from the left side towards the right; and the two veins terminate near to
each of the two ears. There is another pair of veins in the neck running along the big vein on either side,
slightly less in size than the pair just spoken of, and with these the greater part of the veins in the head are
connected. This other pair runs through the throat inside; and from either one of the two there extend veins in
underneath the shoulder blade and towards the hands; and these appear alongside the veins splenitis and
hepatitis as another pair of veins smaller in size. When there is a pain near the surface of the body, the
physician lances these two latter veins; but when the pain is within and in the region of the stomach he lances
the veins splenitis and hepatitis. And from these, other veins depart to run below the breasts.

'There is also another pair running on each side through the spinal marrow to the testicles, thin and delicate.
There is, further, a pair running a little underneath the cuticle through the flesh to the kidneys, and these with
men terminate at the testicle, and with women at the womb. These veins are termed the spermatic veins. The
veins that leave the stomach are comparatively broad just as they leave; but they become gradually thinner,
until they change over from right to left and from left to right.

'Blood is thickest when it is imbibed by the fleshy parts; when it is transmitted to the organs
above-mentioned, it becomes thin, warm, and frothy.'

Such are the accounts given by Syennesis and Diogenes. Polybus writes to the following effect:-

There are four pairs of veins. The first extends from the back of the head, through the neck on the outside,
past the backbone on either side, until it reaches the loins and passes on to the legs, after which it goes on
through the shins to the outer side of the ankles and on to the feet. And it is on this account that surgeons, for
pains in the back and loin, bleed in the ham and in the outer side of the ankle. Another pair of veins runs from

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

the head, past ears, through the neck; which veins are termed the jugular veins. This pair goes on inside along
the backbone, past the muscles of the loins, on to the testicles, and onwards to the thighs, and through the
inside of the hams and through the shins down to the inside of the ankles and to the feet; and for this reason,
surgeons, for pains in the muscles of the loins and in the testicles, bleed on the hams and the inner side of the
ankles. The third pair extends from the temples, through the neck, in underneath the shoulder-blades, into the
lung; those from right to left going in underneath the breast and on to the spleen and the kidney; those from
left to right running from the lung in underneath the breast and into the liver and the kidney; and both
terminate in the fundament. The fourth pair extend from the front part of the head and the eyes in underneath
the neck and the collar-bones; from thence they stretch on through the upper part of the upper arms to the
elbows and then through the fore-arms on to the wrists and the jointings of the fingers, and also through the
lower part of the upper-arms to the armpits, and so on, keeping above the ribs, until one of the pair reaches
the spleen and the other reaches the liver; and after this they both pass over the stomach and terminate at the
penis.'

The above quotations sum up pretty well the statements of all previous writers. Furthermore, there are some
writers on Natural History who have not ventured to lay down the law in such precise terms as regards the
veins, but who all alike agree in assigning the head and the brain as the starting-point of the veins. And in
this opinion they are mistaken.

The investigation of such a subject, as has been remarked, is one fraught with difficulties; but, if any one be
keenly interested in the matter, his best plan will be to allow his animals to starve to emaciation, then to
strangle them on a sudden, and thereupon to prosecute his investigations.

We now proceed to give particulars regarding the properties and functions of the veins. There are two
blood-vessels in the thorax by the backbone, and lying to its inner side; and of these two the larger one is
situated to the front, and the lesser one is to the rear of it; and the larger is situated rather to the right hand
side of the body, and the lesser one to the left; and by some this vein is termed the 'aorta', from the fact that
even in dead bodies part of it is observed to be full of air. These blood-vessels have their origins in the heart,
for they traverse the other viscera, in whatever direction they happen to run, without in any way losing their
distinctive characteristic as blood-vessels, whereas the heart is as it were a part of them (and that too more in
respect to the frontward and larger one of the two), owing to the fact that these two veins are above and
below, with the heart lying midway.

The heart in all animals has cavities inside it. In the case of the smaller animals even the largest of the
chambers is scarcely discernible; the second larger is scarcely discernible in animals of medium size; but in
the largest animals all three chambers are distinctly seen. In the heart then (with its pointed end directed
frontwards, as has been observed) the largest of the three chambers is on the right-hand side and highest up;
the least one is on the left-hand side; and the medium-sized one lies in betwixt the other two; and the largest
one of the three chambers is a great deal larger than either of the two others. All three, however, are
connected with passages leading in the direction of the lung, but all these communications are indistinctly
discernible by reason of their minuteness, except one.

The great blood-vessel, then, is attached to the biggest of the three chambers, the one that lies uppermost and
on the right-hand side; it then extends right through the chamber, coming out as blood-vessel again; just as
though the cavity of the heart were a part of the vessel, in which the blood broadens its channel as a river that
widens out in a lake. The aorta is attached to the middle chamber; only, by the way, it is connected with it by
much narrower pipe.

The great blood-vessel then passes through the heart (and runs from the heart into the aorta). The great vessel
looks as though made of membrane or skin, while the aorta is narrower than it, and is very sinewy; and as it
stretches away to the head and to the lower parts it becomes exceedingly narrow and sinewy.

3 40

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

First of all, then, upwards from the heart there stretches a part of the great blood-vessel towards the lung and
the attachment of the aorta, a part consisting of a large undivided vessel. But there split off from it two parts;
one towards the lung and the other towards the backbone and the last vertebra of the neck.

The vessel, then, that extends to the lung, as the lung itself is duplicate, divides at first into two; and then
extends along by every pipe and every perforation, greater along the greater ones, lesser along the less, so
continuously that it is impossible to discern a single part wherein there is not perforation and vein; for the
extremities are indistinguishable from their minuteness, and in point of fact the whole lung appears to be
filled with blood.

The branches of the blood-vessels lie above the tubes that extend from the windpipe. And that vessel which
extends to the vertebra of the neck and the backbone, stretches back again along the backbone; as Homer
represents in the lines:-

(Antilochus, as Thoon turned him round),
Transpierc'd his back with a dishonest wound;
The hollow vein that to the neck extends,
Along the chine, the eager javelin rends.

From this vessel there extend small blood-vessels at each rib and each vertebra; and at the vertebra above the
kidneys the vessel bifurcates. And in the above way the parts branch off from the great blood-vessel.

But up above all these, from that part which is connected with the heart, the entire vein branches off in two
directions. For its branches extend to the sides and to the collarbones, and then pass on, in men through the
armpits to the arms, in quadrupeds to the forelegs, in birds to the wings, and in fishes to the upper or pectoral
fins. (See diagram.) The trunks of these veins, where they first branch off, are called the 'jugular' veins; and,
where they branch off to the neck the great vein run alongside the windpipe; and, occasionally, if these veins
are pressed externally, men, though not actually choked, become insensible, shut their eyes, and fall flat on
the ground. Extending in the way described and keeping the windpipe in betwixt them, they pass on until they
reach the ears at the junction of the lower jaw with the skull. Hence again they branch off into four veins, of
which one bends back and descends through the neck and the shoulder, and meets the previous branching off
of the vein at the bend of the arm, while the rest of it terminates at the hand and fingers. (See diagram.)

Each vein of the other pair stretches from the region of the ear to the brain, and branches off in a number of
fine and delicate veins into the so-called meninx, or membrane, which surrounds the brain. The brain itself in
all animals is destitute of blood, and no vein, great or small, holds its course therein. But of the remaining
veins that branch off from the last mentioned vein some envelop the head, others close their courses in the
organs of sense and at the roots of the teeth in veins exceedingly fine and minute.

And in like manner the parts of the lesser one of the two chief blood-vessels, designated the aorta, branch
off, accompanying the branches from the big vein; only that, in regard to the aorta, the passages are less in
size, and the branches very considerably less than are those of the great vein. So much for the veins as
observed in the regions above the heart.

The part of the great vein that lies underneath the heart extends, freely suspended, right through the midriff,
and is united both to the aorta and the backbone by slack membranous communications. From it one vein,
short and wide, extends through the liver, and from it a number of minute veins branch off into the liver and
disappear. From the vein that passes through the liver two branches separate off, of which one terminates in
the diaphragm or so-called midriff, and the other runs up again through the armpit into the right arm and

4 41

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

unites with the other veins at the inside of the bend of the arm; and it is in consequence of this local
connexion that, when the surgeon opens this vein in the forearm, the patient is relieved of certain pains in the
liver; and from the left-hand side of it there extends a short but thick vein to the spleen and the little veins
branching off it disappear in that organ. Another part branches off from the left-hand side of the great vein,
and ascends, by a course similar to the course recently described, into the left arm; only that the ascending
vein in the one case is the vein that traverses the liver, while in this case it is distinct from the vein that runs
into the spleen. Again, other veins branch off from the big vein; one to the omentum, and another to the
pancreas, from which vein run a number of veins through the mesentery. All these veins coalesce in a single
large vein, along the entire gut and stomach to the oesophagus; about these parts there is a great ramification
of branch veins.

As far as the kidneys, each of the two remaining undivided, the aorta and the big vein extend; and here they
get more closely attached to the backbone, and branch off, each of the two, into a A shape, and the big vein
gets to the rear of the aorta. But the chief attachment of the aorta to the backbone takes place in the region of
the heart; and the attachment is effected by means of minute and sinewy vessels. The aorta, just as it draws
off from the heart, is a tube of considerable volume, but, as it advances in its course, it gets narrower and
more sinewy. And from the aorta there extend veins to the mesentery just like the veins that extend thither
from the big vein, only that the branches in the case of the aorta are considerably less in magnitude; they are,
indeed, narrow and fibrillar, and they end in delicate hollow fibre-like veinlets.

There is no vessel that runs from the aorta into the liver or the spleen.

From each of the two great blood-vessels there extend branches to each of the two flanks, and both branches
fasten on to the bone. Vessels also extend to the kidneys from the big vein and the aorta; only that they do not
open into the cavity of the organ, but their ramifications penetrate into its substance. From the aorta run two
other ducts to the bladder, firm and continuous; and there are other ducts from the hollow of the kidneys, in
no way communicating with the big vein. From the centre of each of the two kidneys springs a hollow sinewy
vein, running along the backbone right through the loins; by and by each of the two veins first disappears in
its own flank, and soon afterwards reappears stretching in the direction of the flank. The extremities of these
attach to the bladder, and also in the male to the penis and in the female to the womb. From the big vein no
vein extends to the womb, but the organ is connected with the aorta by veins numerous and closely packed.

Furthermore, from the aorta and the great vein at the points of divarication there branch off other veins. Some
of these run to the groins-large hollow veins-and then pass on down through the legs and terminate in the
feet and toes. And, again, another set run through the groins and the thighs cross-garter fashion, from right to
left and from left to right, and unite in the hams with the other veins.

In the above description we have thrown light upon the course of the veins and their points of departure.

In all sanguineous animals the case stands as here set forth in regard to the points of departure and the courses
of the chief veins. But the description does not hold equally good for the entire vein-system in all these
animals. For, in point of fact, the organs are not identically situated in them all; and, what is more, some
animals are furnished with organs of which other animals are destitute. At the same time, while the
description so far holds good, the proof of its accuracy is not equally easy in all cases, but is easiest in the
case of animals of considerable magnitude and supplied abundantly with blood. For in little animals and
those scantily supplied with blood, either from natural and inherent causes or from a prevalence of fat in the
body, thorough accuracy in investigation is not equally attainable; for in the latter of these creatures the
passages get clogged, like water-channels choked with slush; and the others have a few minute fibres to
serve instead of veins. But in all cases the big vein is plainly discernible, even in creatures of insignificant
size.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

The sinews of animals have the following properties. For these also the point of origin is the heart; for the
heart has sinews within itself in the largest of its three chambers, and the aorta is a sinew-like vein; in fact, at
its extremity it is actually a sinew, for it is there no longer hollow, and is stretched like the sinews where they
terminate at the jointings of the bones. Be it remembered, however, that the sinews do not proceed in
unbroken sequence from one point of origin, as do the blood-vessels.

For the veins have the shape of the entire body, like a sketch of a mannikin; in such a way that the whole
frame seems to be filled up with little veins in attenuated subjects-for the space occupied by flesh in fat
individuals is filled with little veins in thin ones-whereas the sinews are distributed about the joints and the
flexures of the bones. Now, if the sinews were derived in unbroken sequence from a common point of
departure, this continuity would be discernible in attenuated specimens.

In the ham, or the part of the frame brought into full play in the effort of leaping, is an important system of
sinews; and another sinew, a double one, is that called 'the tendon', and others are those brought into play
when a great effort of physical strength is required; that is to say, the epitonos or back-stay and the
shoulder-sinews. Other sinews, devoid of specific designation, are situated in the region of the flexures of the
bones; for all the bones that are attached to one another are bound together by sinews, and a great quantity of
sinews are placed in the neighbourhood of all the bones. Only, by the way, in the head there is no sinew; but
the head is held together by the sutures of the bones.

Sinew is fissile lengthwise, but crosswise it is not easily broken, but admits of a considerable amount of hard
tension. In connexion with sinews a liquid mucus is developed, white and glutinous, and the organ, in fact, is
sustained by it and appears to be substantially composed of it. Now, vein may be submitted to the actual
cautery, but sinew, when submitted to such action, shrivels up altogether; and, if sinews be cut asunder, the
severed parts will not again cohere. A feeling of numbness is incidental only to parts of the frame where
sinew is situated.

There is a very extensive system of sinews connected severally with the feet, the hands, the ribs, the
shoulder-blades, the neck, and the arms.

All animals supplied with blood are furnished with sinews; but in the case of animals that have no flexures to
their limbs, but are, in fact, destitute of either feet or hands, the sinews are fine and inconspicuous; and so, as
might have been anticipated, the sinews in the fish are chiefly discernible in connexion with the fin.

The ines (or fibrous connective tissue) are a something intermediate between sinew and vein. Some of them
are supplied with fluid, the lymph; and they pass from sinew to vein and from vein to sinew. There is another
kind of ines or fibre that is found in blood, but not in the blood of all animals alike. If this fibre be left in the
blood, the blood will coagulate; if it be removed or extracted, the blood is found to be incapable of
coagulation. While, however, this fibrous matter is found in the blood of the great majority of animals, it is
not found in all. For instance, we fail to find it in the blood of the deer, the roe, the antelope, and some other
animals; and, owing to this deficiency of the fibrous tissue, the blood of these animals does not coagulate to
the extent observed in the blood of other animals. The blood of the deer coagulates to about the same extent
as that of the hare: that is to the blood in either case coagulates, but not into a stiff or jelly-like substance,
like the blood of ordinary animals, but only into a flaccid consistency like that of milk which is not subjected
to the action of rennet. The blood of the antelope admits of a firmer consistency in coagulation; for in this
respect it resembles, or only comes a little short of, the blood of sheep. Such are the properties of vein, sinew,

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS
and fibrous tissue.

The bones in animals are all connected with one single bone, and are interconnected, like the veins, in one
unbroken sequence; and there is no instance of a bone standing apart by itself. In all animals furnished with
bones, the spine or backbone is the point of origin for the entire osseous system. The spine is composed of
vertebrae, and it extends from the head down to the loins. The vertebrae are all perforated, and, above, the
bony portion of the head is connected with the topmost vertebrae, and is designated the 'skull'. And the
serrated lines on the skull are termed 'sutures'.

The skull is not formed alike in all animals. In some animals the skull consists of one single undivided bone,
as in the case of the dog; in others it is composite in structure, as in man; and in the human species the suture
is circular in the female, while in the male it is made up of three separate sutures, uniting above in
three-corner fashion; and instances have been known of a man's skull being devoid of suture altogether. The
skull is composed not of four bones, but of six; two of these are in the region of the ears, small in comparison
with the other four. From the skull extend the jaws, constituted of bone. (Animals in general move the lower
jaw; the river crocodile is the only animal that moves the upper one.) In the jaws is the tooth-system; and the
teeth are constituted of bone, and are half-way perforated; and the bone in question is the only kind of bone
which it is found impossible to grave with a graving tool.

On the upper part of the course of the backbone are the collar-bones and the ribs. The chest rests on ribs; and
these ribs meet together, whereas the others do not; for no animal has bone in the region of the stomach. Then
come the shoulder-bones, or blade-bones, and the arm-bones connected with these, and the bones in the
hands connected with the bones of the arms. With animals that have forelegs, the osseous system of the
foreleg resembles that of the arm in man.

Below the level of the backbone, after the haunch-bone, comes the hip-socket; then the leg-bones, those in
the thighs and those in the shins, which are termed colenes or limb-bones, a part of which is the ankle, while
a part of the same is the so-called 'plectrum' in those creatures that have an ankle; and connected with these
bones are the bones in the feet.

Now, with all animals that are supplied with blood and furnished with feet, and are at the same time
viviparous, the bones do not differ greatly one from another, but only in the way of relative hardness,
softness, or magnitude. A further difference, by the way, is that in one and the same animal certain bones are
supplied with marrow, while others are destitute of it. Some animals might on casual observation appear to
have no marrow whatsoever in their bones: as is the case with the lion, owing to his having marrow only in
small amount, poor and thin, and in very few bones; for marrow is found in his thigh and armbones. The
bones of the lion are exceptionally hard; so hard, in fact, that if they are rubbed hard against one another they
emit sparks like flint-stones. The dolphin has bones, and not fish-spine.

Of the other animals supplied with blood, some differ but little, as is the case with birds; others have systems
analogous, as fishes; for viviparous fishes, such as the cartilaginous species, are gristle-spined, while the
ovipara have a spine which corresponds to the backbone in quadrupeds. This exceptional property has been
observed in fishes, that in some of them there are found delicate spines scattered here and there throughout
the fleshy parts. The serpent is similarly constructed to the fish; in other words, his backbone is spinous. With
oviparous quadrupeds, the skeleton of the larger ones is more or less osseous; of the smaller ones, more or
less spinous. But all sanguineous animals have a backbone of either one kind or other: that is, composed
either of bone or of spine.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

The other portions of the skeleton are found in some animals and not found in others, but the presence or the
absence of this and that part carries with it, as a matter of course, the presence or the absence of the bones or
the spines corresponding to this or that part. For animals that are destitute of arms and legs cannot be
furnished with limb-bones: and in like manner with animals that have the same parts, but yet have them
unlike in form; for in these animals the corresponding bones differ from one another in the way of relative
excess or relative defect, or in the way of analogy taking the place of identity. So much for the osseous or
spinous systems in animals.

Gristle is of the same nature as bone, but differs from it in the way of relative excess or relative defect. And
just like bone, cartilage also, if cut, does not grow again. In terrestrial viviparous sanguinea the gristle
formations are unperf orated, and there is no marrow in them as there is in bones; in the selachia,
however — for, be it observed, they are gristle-spined — there is found in the case of the flat space in the
region of the backbone, a gristle-like substance analogous to bone, and in this gristle-like substance there is
a liquid resembling marrow. In viviparous animals furnished with feet, gristle formations are found in the
region of the ears, in the nostrils, and around certain extremities of the bones.

Furthermore, there are parts of other kinds, neither identical with, nor altogether diverse from, the parts above
enumerated: such as nails, hooves, claws, and horns; and also, by the way, beaks, such as birds are furnished
with- all in the several animals that are furnished therewithal. All these parts are flexible and fissile; but bone
is neither flexible nor fissile, but frangible.

And the colours of horns and nails and claw and hoof follow the colour of the skin and the hair. For
according as the skin of an animal is black, or white, or of medium hue, so are the horns, the claws, or the
hooves, as the case may be, of hue to match. And it is the same with nails. The teeth, however, follow after
the bones. Thus in black men, such as the Aethiopians and the like, the teeth and bones are white, but the
nails are black, like the whole of the skin.

Horns in general are hollow at their point of attachment to the bone which juts out from the head inside the
horn, but they have a solid portion at the tip, and they are simple and undivided in structure. In the case of the
stag alone of all animals the horns are solid throughout, and ramify into branches (or antlers). And, whereas
no other animal is known to shed its horns, the deer sheds its horns annually, unless it has been castrated; and
with regard to the effects of castration in animals we shall have much to say hereafter. Horns attach rather to
the skin than to the bone; which will account for the fact that there are found in Phrygia and elsewhere cattle
that can move their horns as freely as their ears.

Of animals furnished with nails-and, by the way, all animals have nails that have toes, and toes that have
feet, except the elephant; and the elephant has toes undivided and slightly articulated, but has no nails
whatsoever — of animals furnished with nails, some are straight-nailed, like man; others are crooked nailed,
as the lion among animals that walk, and the eagle among animals that fly.

The following are the properties of hair and of parts analogous to hair, and of skin or hide. All viviparous
animals furnished with feet have hair; all oviparous animals furnished with feet have horn-like tessellates;
fishes, and fishes only, have scales-that is, such oviparous fishes as have the crumbling egg or roe. For of the
lanky fishes, the conger has no such egg, nor the muraena, and the eel has no egg at all.

8 45

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

The hair differs in the way of thickness and fineness, and of length, according to the locality of the part in
which it is found, and according to the quality of skin or hide on which it grows. For, as a general rule, the
thicker the hide, the harder and the thicker is the hair; and the hair is inclined to grow in abundance and to a
great length in localities of the bodies hollow and moist, if the localities be fitted for the growth of hair at all.
The facts are similar in the case of animals whether coated with scales or with tessellates. With soft-haired
animals the hair gets harder with good feeding, and with hard-haired or bristly animals it gets softer and
scantier from the same cause. Hair differs in quality also according to the relative heat or warmth of the
locality: just as the hair in man is hard in warm places and soft in cold ones. Again, straight hair is inclined to
be soft, and curly hair to be bristly.

Hair is naturally fissile, and in this respect it differs in degree in diverse animals. In some animals the hair
goes on gradually hardening into bristle until it no longer resembles hair but spine, as in the case of the
hedgehog. And in like manner with the nails; for in some animals the nail differs as regards solidity in no
way from bone.

Of all animals man has the most delicate skin: that is, if we take into consideration his relative size. In the
skin or hide of all animals there is a mucous liquid, scanty in some animals and plentiful in others, as, for
instance, in the hide of the ox; for men manufacture glue out of it. (And, by the way, in some cases glue is
manufactured from fishes also.) The skin, when cut, is in itself devoid of sensation; and this is especially the
case with the skin on the head, owing to there being no flesh between it and the skull. And wherever the skin
is quite by itself, if it be cut asunder, it does not grow together again, as is seen in the thin part of the jaw, in
the prepuce, and the eyelid. In all animals the skin is one of the parts that extends continuous and unbroken,
and it comes to a stop only where the natural ducts pour out their contents, and at the mouth and nails.

All sanguineous animals, then, have skin; but not all such animals have hair, save only under the
circumstances described above. The hair changes its colour as animals grow old, and in man it turns white or
grey. With animals, in general, the change takes place, but not very obviously, or not so obviously as in the
case of the horse. Hair turns grey from the point backwards to the roots. But, in the majority of cases, grey
hairs are white from the beginning; and this is a proof that greyness of hair does not, as some believe to be the
case, imply withering or decrepitude, for no part is brought into existence in a withered or decrepit condition.

In the eruptive malady called the white-sickness all the hairs get grey; and instances have been known where
the hair became grey while the patients were ill of the malady, whereas the grey hairs shed off and black ones
replaced them on their recovery. (Hair is more apt to turn grey when it is kept covered than when exposed to
the action of the outer air.) In men, the hair over the temples is the first to turn grey, and the hair in the front
grows grey sooner than the hair at the back; and the hair on the pubes is the last to change colour.

Some hairs are congenital, others grow after the maturity of the animal; but this occurs in man only. The
congenital hairs are on the head, the eyelids, and the eyebrows; of the later growths the hairs on the pubes are
the first to come, then those under the armpits, and, thirdly, those on the chin; for, singularly enough, the
regions where congenital growths and the subsequent growths are found are equal in number. The hair on the
head grows scanty and sheds out to a greater extent and sooner than all the rest. But this remark applies only
to hair in front; for no man ever gets bald at the back of his head. Smoothness on the top of the head is termed
'baldness', but smoothness on the eyebrows is denoted by a special term which means 'forehead-baldness';
and neither of these conditions of baldness supervenes in a man until he shall have come under the influence
of sexual passion. For no boy ever gets bald, no woman, and no castrated man. In fact, if a man be castrated
before reaching puberty, the later growths of hair never come at all; and, if the operation take place
subsequently, the aftergrowths, and these only, shed off; or, rather, two of the growths shed off, but not that

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

on the pubes.

Women do not grow hairs on the chin; except that a scanty beard grows on some women after the monthly
courses have stopped; and similar phenomenon is observed at times in priestesses in Caria, but these cases are
looked upon as portentous with regard to coming events. The other after-growths are found in women, but
more scanty and sparse. Men and women are at times born constitutionally and congenitally incapable of the
after-growths; and individuals that are destitute even of the growth upon the pubes are constitutionally
impotent.

Hair as a rule grows more or less in length as the wearer grows in age; chiefly the hair on the head, then that
in the beard, and fine hair grows longest of all. With some people as they grow old the eyebrows grow
thicker, to such an extent that they have to be cut off; and this growth is owing to the fact that the eyebrows
are situated at a conjuncture of bones, and these bones, as age comes on, draw apart and exude a gradual
increase of moisture or rheum. The eyelashes do not grow in size, but they shed when the wearer comes first
under the influence of sexual feelings, and shed all the quicker as this influence is the more powerful; and
these are the last hairs to grow grey.

Hairs if plucked out before maturity grow again; but they do not grow again if plucked out afterwards. Every
hair is supplied with a mucous moisture at its root, and immediately after being plucked out it can lift light
articles if it touch them with this mucus.

Animals that admit of diversity of colour in the hair admit of a similar diversity to start with in the skin and in
the cuticle of the tongue.

In some cases among men the upper lip and the chin is thickly covered with hair, and in other cases these
parts are smooth and the cheeks are hairy; and, by the way, smooth-chinned men are less inclined than
bearded men to baldness.

The hair is inclined to grow in certain diseases, especially in consumption, and in old age, and after death;
and under these circumstances the hair hardens concomitantly with its growth, and the same duplicate
phenomenon is observable in respect of the nails.

In the case of men of strong sexual passions the congenital hairs shed the sooner, while the hairs of the
after-growths are the quicker to come. When men are afflicted with varicose veins they are less inclined to
take on baldness; and if they be bald when they become thus afflicted, they have a tendency to get their hair
again.

If a hair be cut, it does not grow at the point of section; but it gets longer by growing upward from below. In
fishes the scales grow harder and thicker with age, and when the amimal gets emaciated or is growing old the
scales grow harder. In quadrupeds as they grow old the hair in some and the wool in others gets deeper but
scantier in amount: and the hooves or claws get larger in size; and the same is the case with the beaks of
birds. The claws also increase in size, as do also the nails.

With regard to winged animals, such as birds, no creature is liable to change of colour by reason of age,
excepting the crane. The wings of this bird are ash-coloured at first, but as it grows old the wings get black.
Again, owing to special climatic influences, as when unusual frost prevails, a change is sometimes observed
to take place in birds whose plumage is of one uniform colour; thus, birds that have dusky or downright black
plumage turn white or grey, as the raven, the sparrow, and the swallow; but no case has ever yet been known

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

of a change of colour from white to black. (Further, most birds change the colour of their plumage at different
seasons of the year, so much so that a man ignorant of their habits might be mistaken as to their identity.)
Some animals change the colour of their hair with a change in their drinking-water, for in some countries the
same species of animal is found white in one district and black in another. And in regard to the commerce of
the sexes, water in many places is of such peculiar quality that rams, if they have intercourse with the female
after drinking it, beget black lambs, as is the case with the water of the Psychrus (so-called from its
coldness), a river in the district of Assyritis in the Chalcidic Peninsula, on the coast of Thrace; and in
Antandria there are two rivers of which one makes the lambs white and the other black. The river Scamander
also has the reputation of making lambs yellow, and that is the reason, they say, why Homer designates it the
'Yellow River.' Animals as a general rule have no hair on their internal surfaces, and, in regard to their
extremities, they have hair on the upper, but not on the lower side.

The hare, or dasypod, is the only animal known to have hair inside its mouth and underneath its feet. Further,
the so-called mousewhale instead of teeth has hairs in its mouth resembling pigs' bristles.

Hairs after being cut grow at the bottom but not at the top; if feathers be cut off, they grow neither at top nor
bottom, but shed and fall out. Further, the bee's wing will not grow again after being plucked off, nor will the
wing of any creature that has undivided wings. Neither will the sting grow again if the bee lose it, but the
creature will die of the loss.

In all sanguineous animals membranes are found. And membrane resembles a thin close-textured skin, but
its qualities are different, as it admits neither of cleavage nor of extension. Membrane envelops each one of
the bones and each one of the viscera, both in the larger and the smaller animals; though in the smaller
animals the membranes are indiscernible from their extreme tenuity and minuteness. The largest of all the
membranes are the two that surround the brain, and of these two the one that lines the bony skull is stronger
and thicker than the one that envelops the brain; next in order of magnitude comes the membrane that
encloses the heart. If membrane be bared and cut asunder it will not grow together again, and the bone thus
stripped of its membrane mortifies.

The omentum or caul, by the way, is membrane. All sanguineous animals are furnished with this organ; but
in some animals the organ is supplied with fat, and in others it is devoid of it. The omentum has both its
starting-point and its attachment, with ambidental vivipara, in the centre of the stomach, where the stomach
has a kind of suture; in non-ambidental vivipara it has its starting-point and attachment in the chief of the
ruminating stomachs.

The bladder also is of the nature of membrane, but of membrane peculiar in kind, for it is extensile. The
organ is not common to all animals, but, while it is found in all the vivipara, the tortoise is the only oviparous
animal that is furnished therewithal. The bladder, like ordinary membrane, if cut asunder will not grow
together again, unless the section be just at the commencement of the urethra: except indeed in very rare
cases, for instances of healing have been known to occur. After death, the organ passes no liquid excretion;
but in life, in addition to the normal liquid excretion, it passes at times dry excretion also, which turns into
stones in the case of sufferers from that malady. Indeed, instances have been known of concretions in the
bladder so shaped as closely to resemble cockleshells.

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Such are the properties, then, of vein, sinew and skin, of fibre and membrane, of hair, nail, claw and hoof, of
horns, of teeth, of beak, of gristle, of bones, and of parts that are analogous to any of the parts here
enumerated.

Flesh, and that which is by nature akin to it in sanguineous animals, is in all cases situated in between the
skin and the bone, or the substance analogous to bone; for just as spine is a counterpart of bone, so is the
flesh-like substance of animals that are constructed a spinous system the counterpart of the flesh of animals
constructed on an osseous one.

Flesh can be divided asunder in any direction, not lengthwise only as is the case with sinew and vein. When
animals are subjected to emaciation the flesh disappears, and the creatures become a mass of veins and fibres;
when they are over fed, fat takes the place of flesh. Where the flesh is abundant in an animal, its veins are
somewhat small and the blood abnormally red; the viscera also and the stomach are diminutive; whereas with
animals whose veins are large the blood is somewhat black, the viscera and the stomach are large, and the
flesh is somewhat scanty. And animals with small stomachs are disposed to take on flesh.

Again, fat and suet differ from one another. Suet is frangible in all directions and congeals if subjected to
extreme cold, whereas fat can melt but cannot freeze or congeal; and soups made of the flesh of animals
supplied with fat do not congeal or coagulate, as is found with horse-flesh and pork; but soups made from the
flesh of animals supplied with suet do coagulate, as is seen with mutton and goat's flesh. Further, fat and suet
differ as to their localities: for fat is found between the skin and flesh, but suet is found only at the limit of the
fleshy parts. Also, in animals supplied with fat the omentum or caul is supplied with fat, and it is supplied
with suet in animals supplied with suet. Moreover, ambidental animals are supplied with fat, and
non-ambidentals with suet.

Of the viscera the liver in some animals becomes fatty, as, among fishes, is the case with the selachia, by the
melting of whose livers an oil is manufactured. These cartilaginous fish themselves have no free fat at all in
connexion with the flesh or with the stomach. The suet in fish is fatty, and does not solidify or congeal. All
animals are furnished with fat, either intermingled with their flesh, or apart. Such as have no free or separate
fat are less fat than others in stomach and omentum, as the eel; for it has only a scanty supply of suet about
the omentum. Most animals take on fat in the belly, especially such animals as are little in motion.

The brains of animals supplied with fat are oily, as in the pig; of animals supplied with suet, parched and dry.
But it is about the kidneys more than any other viscera that animals are inclined to take on fat; and the right
kidney is always less supplied with fat than the left kidney, and, be the two kidneys ever so fat, there is
always a space devoid of fat in between the two. Animals supplied with suet are specially apt to have it about
the kidneys, and especially the sheep; for this animal is apt to die from its kidneys being entirely enveloped.
Fat or suet about the kidney is superinduced by overfeeding, as is found at Leontini in Sicily; and
consequently in this district they defer driving out sheep to pasture until the day is well on, with the view of
limiting their food by curtailment of the hours of pasture.

The part around the pupil of the eye is fatty in all animals, and this part resembles suet in all animals that
possess such a part and that are not furnished with hard eyes.

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

Fat animals, whether male or female, are more or less unfitted for breeding purposes. Animals are disposed to
take on fat more when old than when young, and especially when they have attained their full breadth and
their full length and are beginning to grow depthways.

And now to proceed to the consideration of the blood. In sanguineous animals blood is the most universal and
the most indispensable part; and it is not an acquired or adventitious part, but it is a consubstantial part of all
animals that are not corrupt or moribund. All blood is contained in a vascular system, to wit, the veins, and is
found nowhere else, excepting in the heart. Blood is not sensitive to touch in any animal, any more than the
excretions of the stomach; and the case is similar with the brain and the marrow. When flesh is lacerated,
blood exudes, if the animal be alive and unless the flesh be gangrened. Blood in a healthy condition is
naturally sweet to the taste, and red in colour, blood that deteriorates from natural decay or from disease more
or less black. Blood at its best, before it undergoes deterioration from either natural decay or from disease, is
neither very thick nor very thin. In the living animal it is always liquid and warm, but, on issuing from the
body, it coagulates in all cases except in the case of the deer, the roe, and the like animals; for, as a general
rule, blood coagulates unless the fibres be extracted. Bull's blood is the quickest to coagulate.

Animals that are internally and externally viviparous are more abundantly supplied with blood than the
sanguineous ovipara. Animals that are in good condition, either from natural causes or from their health
having been attended to, have the blood neither too abundant-as creatures just after drinking have the liquid
inside them in abundance-nor again very scanty, as is the case with animals when exceedingly fat. For
animals in this condition have pure blood, but very little of it, and the fatter an animal gets the less becomes
its supply of blood; for whatsoever is fat is destitute of blood.

A fat substance is incorruptible, but blood and all things containing it corrupt rapidly, and this property
characterizes especially all parts connected with the bones. Blood is finest and purest in man; and thickest
and blackest in the bull and the ass, of all vivipara. In the lower and the higher parts of the body blood is
thicker and blacker than in the central parts.

Blood beats or palpitates in the veins of all animals alike all over their bodies, and blood is the only liquid
that permeates the entire frames of living animals, without exception and at all times, as long as life lasts.
Blood is developed first of all in the heart of animals before the body is differentiated as a whole. If blood be
removed or if it escape in any considerable quantity, animals fall into a faint or swoon; if it be removed or if
it escape in an exceedingly large quantity they die. If the blood get exceedingly liquid, animals fall sick; for
the blood then turns into something like ichor, or a liquid so thin that it at times has been known to exude
through the pores like sweat. In some cases blood, when issuing from the veins, does not coagulate at all, or
only here and there. Whilst animals are sleeping the blood is less abundantly supplied near the exterior
surfaces, so that, if the sleeping creature be pricked with a pin, the blood does not issue as copiously as it
would if the creature were awake. Blood is developed out of ichor by coction, and fat in like manner out of
blood. If the blood get diseased, haemorrhoids may ensue in the nostril or at the anus, or the veins may
become varicose. Blood, if it corrupt in the body, has a tendency to turn into pus, and pus may turn into a
solid concretion.

Blood in the female differs from that in the male, for, supposing the male and female to be on a par as regards
age and general health, the blood in the female is thicker and blacker than in the male; and with the female
there is a comparative superabundance of it in the interior. Of all female animals the female in man is the
most richly supplied with blood, and of all female animals the menstruous discharges are the most copious in
woman. The blood of these discharges under disease turns into flux. Apart from the menstrual discharges, the
female in the human species is less subject to diseases of the blood than the male.

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Women are seldom afflicted with varicose veins, with haemorrhoids, or with bleeding at the nose, and, if any
of these maladies supervene, the menses are imperfectly discharged.

Blood differs in quantity and appearance according to age; in very young animals it resembles ichor and is
abundant, in the old it is thick and black and scarce, and in middle-aged animals its qualities are
intermediate. In old animals the blood coagulates rapidly, even blood at the surface of the body; but this is
not the case with young animals. Ichor is, in fact, nothing else but unconcocted blood: either blood that has
not yet been concocted, or that has become fluid again.

We now proceed to discuss the properties of marrow; for this is one of the liquids found in certain
sanguineous animals. All the natural liquids of the body are contained in vessels: as blood in veins, marrow in
bones other moistures in membranous structures of the skin

In young animals the marrow is exceedingly sanguineous, but, as animals grow old, it becomes fatty in
animals supplied with fat, and suet-like in animals with suet. All bones, however, are not supplied with
marrow, but only the hollow ones, and not all of these. For of the bones in the lion some contain no marrow
at all, and some are only scantily supplied therewith; and that accounts, as was previously observed, for the
statement made by certain writers that the lion is marrowless. In the bones of pigs it is found in small
quantities; and in the bones of certain animals of this species it is not found at all.

These liquids, then, are nearly always congenital in animals, but milk and sperm come at a later time. Of
these latter, that which, whensoever it is present, is secreted in all cases ready-made, is the milk; sperm, on
the other hand, is not secreted out in all cases, but in some only, as in the case of what are designated thori in
fishes.

Whatever animals have milk, have it in their breasts. All animals have breasts that are internally and
externally viviparous, as for instance all animals that have hair, as man and the horse; and the cetaceans, as
the dolphin, the porpoise, and the whale-for these animals have breasts and are supplied with milk. Animals
that are oviparous or only externally viviparous have neither breasts nor milk, as the fish and the bird.

All milk is composed of a watery serum called 'whey', and a consistent substance called curd (or cheese); and
the thicker the milk, the more abundant the curd. The milk, then, of non-ambidentals coagulates, and that is
why cheese is made of the milk of such animals under domestication; but the milk of ambidentals does not
coagulate, nor their fat either, and the milk is thin and sweet. Now the camel's milk is the thinnest, and that of
the human species next after it, and that of the ass next again, but cow's milk is the thickest. Milk does not
coagulate under the influence of cold, but rather runs to whey; but under the influence of heat it coagulates
and thickens. As a general rule milk only comes to animals in pregnancy. When the animal is pregnant milk
is found, but for a while it is unfit for use, and then after an interval of usefulness it becomes unfit for use
again. In the case of female animals not pregnant a small quantity of milk has been procured by the
employment of special food, and cases have been actually known where women advanced in years on being
submitted to the process of milking have produced milk, and in some cases have produced it in sufficient
quantities to enable them to suckle an infant.

The people that live on and about Mount Oeta take such she-goats as decline the male and rub their udders
hard with nettles to cause an irritation amounting to pain; hereupon they milk the animals, procuring at first a
liquid resembling blood, then a liquid mixed with purulent matter, and eventually milk, as freely as from
females submitting to the male.

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

As a general rule, milk is not found in the male of man or of any other animal, though from time to time it has
been found in a male; for instance, once in Lemnos a he-goat was milked by its dugs (for it has, by the way,
two dugs close to the penis), and was milked to such effect that cheese was made of the produce, and the
same phenomenon was repeated in a male of its own begetting. Such occurrences, however, are regarded as
supernatural and fraught with omen as to futurity, and in point of fact when the Lemnian owner of the animal
inquired of the oracle, the god informed him that the portent foreshadowed the acquisition of a fortune. With
some men, after puberty, milk can be produced by squeezing the breasts; cases have been known where on
their being subjected to a prolonged milking process a considerable quantity of milk has been educed.

In milk there is a fatty element, which in clotted milk gets to resemble oil. Goat's milk is mixed with sheep's
milk in Sicily, and wherever sheep's milk is abundant. The best milk for clotting is not only that where the
cheese is most abundant, but that also where the cheese is driest.

Now some animals produce not only enough milk to rear their young, but a superfluous amount for general
use, for cheese-making and for storage. This is especially the case with the sheep and the goat, and next in
degree with the cow. Mare's milk, by the way, and milk of the she-ass are mixed in with Phrygian cheese.
And there is more cheese in cow's milk than in goat's milk; for graziers tell us that from nine gallons of goat's
milk they can get nineteen cheeses at an obol apiece, and from the same amount of cow's milk, thirty. Other
animals give only enough of milk to rear their young withal, and no superfluous amount and none fitted for
cheese-making, as is the case with all animals that have more than two breasts or dugs; for with none of such
animals is milk produced in superabundance or used for the manufacture of cheese.

The juice of the fig and rennet are employed to curdle milk. The fig-juice is first squeezed out into wool; the
wool is then washed and rinsed, and the rinsing put into a little milk, and if this be mixed with other milk it
curdles Rennet is a kind of milk, for it is found in the stomach of the animal while it is yet suckling.

Rennet then consists of milk with an admixture of fire, which comes from the natural heat of the animal, as
the milk is concocted. All ruminating animals produce rennet, and, of ambidentals, the hare. Rennet improves
in quality the longer it is kept; and cow's rennet, after being kept a good while, and also hare's rennet, is good
for diarrhoea, and the best of all rennet is that of the young deer.

In milk-producing animals the comparative amount of the yield varies with the size of the animal and the
diversities of pasturage. For instance, there are in Phasis small cattle that in all cases give a copious supply of
milk, and the large cows in Epirus yield each one daily some nine gallons of milk, and half of this from each
pair of teats, and the milker has to stand erect, stooping forward a little, as otherwise, if he were seated, he
would be unable to reach up to the teats. But, with the exception of the ass, all the quadrupeds in Epirus are of
large size, and relatively, the cattle and the dogs are the largest. Now large animals require abundant pasture,
and this country supplies just such pasturage, and also supplies diverse pasture grounds to suit the diverse
seasons of the year. The cattle are particularly large, and likewise the sheep of the so-called Pyrrhic breed,
the name being given in honour of King Pyrrhus.

Some pasture quenches milk, as Median grass or lucerne, and that especially in ruminants; other feeding
renders it copious, as cytisus and vetch; only, by the way, cytisus in flower is not recommended, as it has
burning properties, and vetch is not good for pregnant kine, as it causes increased difficulty in parturition.
However, beasts that have access to good feeding, as they are benefited thereby in regard to pregnancy, so
also being well nourished produce milk in plenty. Some of the leguminous plants bring milk in abundance, as
for instance, a large feed of beans with the ewe, the common she-goat, the cow, and the small she-goat; for
this feeding makes them drop their udders. And, by the way, the pointing of the udder to the ground before

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

parturition is a sign of there being plenty of milk coming.

Milk remains for a long time in the female, if she be kept from the male and be properly fed, and, of
quadrupeds, this is especially true of the ewe; for the ewe can be milked for eight months. As a general rule,
ruminating animals give milk in abundance, and milk fitted for cheese manufacture. In the neighbourhood of
Torone cows run dry for a few days before calving, and have milk all the rest of the time. In women, milk of
a livid colour is better than white for nursing purposes; and swarthy women give healthier milk than fair ones.
Milk that is richest in cheese is the most nutritious, but milk with a scanty supply of cheese is the more
wholesome for children.

All sanguineous animals eject sperm. As to what, and how, it contributes to generation, these questions will
be discussed in another treatise. Taking the size of his body into account, man emits more sperm than any
other animal. In hairy-coated animals the sperm is sticky, but in other animals it is not so. It is white in all
cases, and Herodotus is under a misapprehension when he states that the Aethiopians eject black sperm.

Sperm issues from the body white and consistent, if it be healthy, and after quitting the body becomes thin
and black. In frosty weather it does not coagulate, but gets exceedingly thin and watery both in colour and
consistency; but it coagulates and thickens under the influence of heat. If it be long in the womb before
issuing out, it comes more than usually thick; and sometimes it comes out dry and compact. Sperm capable of
impregnating or of fructification sinks in water; sperm incapable Of producing that result dissolves away. But
there is no truth in what Ctesias has written about the sperm of the elephant.

Book IV

We have now treated, in regard to blooded animals of the parts they have in common and of the parts peculiar
to this genus or that, and of the parts both composite and simple, whether without or within. We now proceed
to treat of animals devoid of blood. These animals are divided into several genera.

One genus consists of so-called 'molluscs'; and by the term 'mollusc' we mean an animal that, being devoid
of blood, has its flesh-like substance outside, and any hard structure it may happen to have, inside-in this
respect resembling the red-blooded animals, such as the genus of the cuttle-fish.

Another genus is that of the malacostraca. These are animals that have their hard structure outside, and their
soft or fleshlike substance inside, and the hard substance belonging to them has to be crushed rather than
shattered; and to this genus belongs the crawfish and the crab.

A third genus is that of the ostracoderms or 'testaceans'. These are animals that have their hard substance
outside and their flesh-like substance within, and their hard substance can be shattered but not crushed; and
to this genus belong the snail and the oyster.

The fourth genus is that of insects; and this genus comprehends numerous and dissimilar species. Insects are
creatures that, as the name implies, have nicks either on the belly or on the back, or on both belly and back,
and have no one part distinctly osseous and no one part distinctly fleshy, but are throughout a something
intermediate between bone and flesh; that is to say, their body is hard all through, inside and outside. Some
insects are wingless, such as the iulus and the centipede; some are winged, as the bee, the cockchafer, and the
wasp; and the same kind is in some cases both winged and wingless, as the ant and the glow-worm.

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

In molluscs the external parts are as follows: in the first place, the so-called feet; secondly, and attached to
these, the head; thirdly, the mantle-sac, containing the internal parts, and incorrectly designated by some
writers the head; and, fourthly, fins round about the sac. (See diagram.) In all molluscs the head is found to be
between the feet and the belly. All molluscs are furnished with eight feet, and in all cases these feet are
severally furnished with a double row of suckers, with the exception of one single species of poulpe or
octopus. The sepia, the small calamary and the large calamary have an exceptional organ in a pair of long
arms or tentacles, having at their extremities a portion rendered rough by the presence of two rows of suckers;
and with these arms or tentacles they apprehend their food and draw it into their mouths, and in stormy
weather they cling by them to a rock and sway about in the rough water like ships lying at anchor. They swim
by the aid of the fins that they have about the sac. In all cases their feet are furnished with suckers.

The octopus, by the way, uses his feelers either as feet or hands; with the two which stand over his mouth he
draws in food, and the last of his feelers he employs in the act of copulation; and this last one, by the way, is
extremely sharp, is exceptional as being of a whitish colour, and at its extremity is bifurcate; that is to say, it
has an additional something on the rachis, and by rachis is meant the smooth surface or edge of the arm on
the far side from the suckers. (See diagram.)

In front of the sac and over the feelers they have a hollow tube, by means of which they discharge any
sea-water that they may have taken into the sac of the body in the act of receiving food by the mouth. They
can shift the tube from side to side, and by means of it they discharge the black liquid peculiar to the animal.

Stretching out its feet, it swims obliquely in the direction of the so-called head, and by this mode of
swimming it can see in front, for its eyes are at the top, and in this attitude it has its mouth at the rear. The
'head', while the creature is alive, is hard, and looks as though it were inflated. It apprehends and retains
objects by means of the under-surface of its arms, and the membrane in between its feet is kept at full
tension; if the animal get on to the sand it can no longer retain its hold.

There is a difference between the octopus and the other molluscs above mentioned: the body of the octopus is
small, and his feet are long, whereas in the others the body is large and the feet short; so short, in fact, that
they cannot walk on them. Compared with one another, the teuthis, or calamary, is long-shaped, and the
sepia flat-shaped; and of the calamaries the so-called teuthus is much bigger than the teuthis; for teuthi have
been found as much as five ells long. Some sepiae attain a length of two ells, and the feelers of the octopus
are sometimes as long, or even longer. The species teuthus is not a numerous one; the teuthus differs from the
teuthis in shape; that is, the sharp extremity of the teuthus is broader than that of the other, and, further, the
encircling fin goes all round the trunk, whereas it is in part lacking in the teuthis; both animals are pelagic.

In all cases the head comes after the feet, in the middle of the feet that are called arms or feelers. There is here
situated a mouth, and two teeth in the mouth; and above these two large eyes, and betwixt the eyes a small
cartilage enclosing a small brain; and within the mouth it has a minute organ of a fleshy nature, and this it
uses as a tongue, for no other tongue does it possess. Next after this, on the outside, is what looks like a sac;
the flesh of which it is made is divisible, not in long straight strips, but in annular flakes; and all molluscs
have a cuticle around this flesh. Next after or at the back of the mouth comes a long and narrow oesophagus,
and close after that a crop or craw, large and spherical, like that of a bird; then comes the stomach, like the
fourth stomach in ruminants; and the shape of it resembles the spiral convolution in the trumpet-shell; from
the stomach there goes back again, in the direction of the mouth, thin gut, and the gut is thicker than the
oesophagus. (See diagram.)

Molluscs have no viscera, but they have what is called a mytis, and on it a vessel containing a thick black
juice; in the sepia or cuttle-fish this vessel is the largest, and this juice is most abundant. All molluscs, when
frightened, discharge such a juice, but the discharge is most copious in the cuttle-fish. The mytis, then, is
situated under the mouth, and the oesophagus runs through it; and down below at the point to which the gut

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extends is the vesicle of the black juice, and the animal has the vesicle and the gut enveloped in one and the
same membrane, and by the same membrane, same orifice discharges both the black juice and the residuum.
The animals have also certain hair-like or furry growths in their bodies.

In the sepia, the teuthis, and the teuthus the hard parts are within, towards the back of the body; those parts
are called in one the sepium, and in the other the 'sword'. They differ from one another, for the sepium in the
cuttle-fish and teuthus is hard and flat, being a substance intermediate between bone and fishbone, with (in
part) a crumbling, spongy texture, but in the teuthis the part is thin and somewhat gristly. These parts differ
from one another in shape, as do also the bodies of the animals. The octopus has nothing hard of this kind in
its interior, but it has a gristly substance round the head, which, if the animal grows old, becomes hard.

The females differ from the males. The males have a duct in under the oesophagus, extending from the
mantle-cavity to the lower portion of the sac, and there is an organ to which it attaches, resembling a breast;
(see diagram) in the female there are two of these organs, situated higher up; (see diagram) with both sexes
there are underneath these organs certain red formations. The egg of the octopus is single, uneven on its
surface, and of large size; the fluid substance within is all uniform in colour, smooth, and in colour white; the
size of the egg is so great as to fill a vessel larger than the creature's head. The sepia has two sacs, and inside
them a number of eggs, like in appearance to white hailstones. For the disposition of these parts I must refer
to my anatomical diagrams.

The males of all these animals differ from the females, and the difference between the sexes is most marked
in the sepia; for the back of the trunk, which is blacker than the belly, is rougher in the male than in the
female, and in the male the back is striped, and the rump is more sharply pointed.

There are several species of the octopus. One keeps close to the surface, and is the largest of them all, and
near the shore the size is larger than in deep water; and there are others, small, variegated in colour, which are
not articles of food. There are two others, one called the heledone, which differs from its congeners in the
length of its legs and in having one row of suckers-all the rest of the molluscs having two,-the other
nicknamed variously the bolitaina or the 'onion,' and the ozolis or the 'stinkard'.

There are two others found in shells resembling those of the testaceans. One of them is nicknamed by some
persons the nautilus or the pontilus, or by others the 'polypus' egg'; and the shell of this creature is something
like a separate valve of a deep scallop-shell. This polypus lives very often near to the shore, and is apt to be
thrown up high and dry on the beach; under these circumstances it is found with its shell detached, and dies
by and by on dry land. These polypods are small, and are shaped, as regards the form of their bodies, like the
bolbidia. There is another polypus that is placed within a shell like a snail; it never comes out of the shell, but
lives inside the shell like the snail, and from time to time protrudes its feelers.

So much for molluscs.

With regard to the Malacostraca or crustaceans, one species is that of the crawfish, and a second, resembling
the first, is that of the lobster; the lobster differing from the crawfish in having claws, and in a few other
respects as well. Another species is that of the carid, and another is that of the crab, and there are many kinds
both of carid and of crab.

Of carids there are the so-called cyphae, or 'hunch-backs', the crangons, or squillae, and the little kind, or
shrimps, and the little kind do not develop into a larger kind.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

Of the crab, the varieties are indefinite and incalculable. The largest of all crabs is one nicknamed Maia, a
second variety is the pagarus and the crab of Heracleotis, and a third variety is the fresh-water crab; the other
varieties are smaller in size and destitute of special designations. In the neighbourhood of Phoenice there are
found on the beach certain crabs that are nicknamed the 'horsemen', from their running with such speed that it
is difficult to overtake them; these crabs, when opened, are usually found empty, and this emptiness may be
put down to insufficiency of nutriment. (There is another variety, small like the crab, but resembling in shape
the lobster.) All these animals, as has been stated, have their hard and shelly part outside, where the skin is in
other animals, and the fleshy part inside; and the belly is more or less provided with lamellae, or little flaps,
and the female here deposits her spawn.

The crawfishes have five feet on either side, including the claws at the end; and in like manner the crabs have
ten feet in all, including the claws. Of the carids, the hunch-backed, or prawns, have five feet on either side,
which are sharp-pointed-those towards the head; and five others on either side in the region of the belly,
with their extremities flat; they are devoid of flaps on the under side such as the crawfish has, but on the back
they resemble the crawfish. (See diagram.)It is very different with the crangon, or squilla; it has four front
legs on either side, then three thin ones close behind on either side, and the rest of the body is for the most
part devoid of feet. (See diagram.) Of all these animals the feet bend out obliquely, as is the case with insects;
and the claws, where claws are found, turn inwards. The crawfish has a tail, and five fins on it; and the
round-backed carid has a tail and four fins; the squilla also has fins at the tail on either side. In the case of
both the hump-backed carid and the squilla the middle art of the tail is spinous: only that in the squilla the
part is flattened and in the carid it is sharp-pointed. Of all animals of this genus the crab is the only one
devoid of a rump; and, while the body of the carid and the crawfish is elongated, that of the crab is rotund.

In the crawfish the male differs from the female: in the female the first foot is bifurcate, in the male it is
undivided; the belly-fins in the female are large and overlapping on the neck, while in the male they are
smaller and do not overlap; and, further, on the last feet of the male there are spur-like projections, large and
sharp, which projections in the female are small and smooth. Both male and female have two antennae in
front of the eyes, large and rough, and other antennae underneath, small and smooth. The eyes of all these
creatures are hard and beady, and can move either to the inner or to the outer side. The eyes of most crabs
have a similar facility of movement, or rather, in the crab this facility is developed in a higher degree. (See
diagram.)

The lobster is all over grey-coloured, with a mottling of black. Its under or hinder feet, up to the big feet or
claws, are eight in number; then come the big feet, far larger and flatter at the tips than the same organs in the
crawfish; and these big feet or claws are exceptional in their structure, for the right claw has the extreme flat
surface long and thin, while the left claw has the corresponding surface thick and round. Each of the two
claws, divided at the end like a pair of jaws, has both below and above a set of teeth: only that in the right
claw they are all small and saw-shaped, while in the left claw those at the apex are saw-shaped and those
within are molar-shaped, these latter being, in the under part of the cleft claw, four teeth close together, and
in the upper part three teeth, not close together. Both right and left claws have the upper part mobile, and
bring it to bear against the lower one, and both are curved like bandy-legs, being thereby adapted for
apprehension and constriction. Above the two large claws come two others, covered with hair, a little
underneath the mouth; and underneath these the gill-like formations in the region of the mouth, hairy and
numerous. These organs the animal keeps in perpetual motion; and the two hairy feet it bends and draws in
towards its mouth. The feet near the mouth are furnished also with delicate outgrowing appendages. Like the
crawfish, the lobster has two teeth, or mandibles, and above these teeth are its antennae, long, but shorter and
finer by far than those of the crawfish, and then four other antennae similar in shape, but shorter and finer
than the others. Over these antennae come the eyes, small and short, not large like the eyes of the crawfish.
Over the eyes is a peaky rough projection like a forehead, larger than the same part in the crawfish; in fact,
the frontal part is more pointed and the thorax is much broader in the lobster than in the crawfish, and the
body in general is smoother and more full of flesh. Of the eight feet, four are bifurcate at the extremities, and

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

four are undivided. The region of the so-called neck is outwardly divided into five divisions, and sixthly
comes the flattened portion at the end, and this portion has five flaps, or tail-fins; and the inner or under
parts, into which the female drops her spawn, are four in number and hairy, and on each of the aforesaid parts
is a spine turned outwards, short and straight. The body in general and the region of the thorax in particular
are smooth, not rough as in the crawfish; but on the large claws the outer portion has larger spines. There is
no apparent difference between the male and female, for they both have one claw, whichever it may be, larger
than the other, and neither male nor female is ever found with both claws of the same size.

All crustaceans take in water close by the mouth. The crab discharges it, closing up, as it does so, a small
portion of the same, and the crawfish discharges it by way of the gills; and, by the way, the gill-shaped
organs in the crawfish are very numerous.

The following properties are common to all crustaceans: they have in all cases two teeth, or mandibles (for
the front teeth in the crawfish are two in number), and in all cases there is in the mouth a small fleshy
structure serving for a tongue; and the stomach is close to the mouth, only that the crawfish has a little
oesophagus in front of the stomach, and there is a straight gut attached to it. This gut, in the crawfish and its
congeners, and in the carids, extends in a straight line to the tail, and terminates where the animal discharges
the residuum, and where the female deposits her spawn; in the crab it terminates where the flap is situated,
and in the centre of the flap. (And by the way, in all these animals the spawn is deposited outside.) Further,
the female has the place for the spawn running along the gut. And, again, all these animals have, more or less,
an organ termed the 'mytis', or 'poppyjuice'.

We must now proceed to review their several differentiae.

The crawfish then, as has been said, has two teeth, large and hollow, in which is contained a juice resembling
the mytis, and in between the teeth is a fleshy substance, shaped like a tongue. After the mouth comes a short
oesophagus, and then a membranous stomach attached to the oesophagus, and at the orifice Of the stomach
are three teeth, two facing one another and a third standing by itself underneath. Coming off at a bend from
the stomach is a gut, simple and of equal thickness throughout the entire length of the body until it reaches
the anal vent.

These are all common properties of the crawfish, the carid, and the crab; for the crab, be it remembered, has
two teeth.

Again, the crawfish has a duct attached all the way from the chest to the anal vent; and this duct is connected
with the ovary in the female, and with the seminal ducts in the male. This passage is attached to the concave
surface of the flesh in such a way that the flesh is in betwixt the duct and the gut; for the gut is related to the
convexity and this duct to the concavity, pretty much as is observed in quadrupeds. And the duct is identical
in both the sexes; that is to say, the duct in both is thin and white, and charged with a sallow-coloured
moisture, and is attached to the chest.

(The following are the properties of the egg and of the convolutes in the carid.)

The male, by the way, differs from the female in regard to its flesh, in having in connexion with the chest two
separate and distinct white substances, resembling in colour and conformation the tentacles of the cuttle-fish,
and they are convoluted like the 'poppy' or quasi-liver of the trumpet-shell. These organs have their
starting-point in 'cotyledons' or papillae, which are situated under the hindmost feet; and hereabouts the flesh
is red and blood-coloured, but is slippery to the touch and in so far unlike flesh. Off from the convolute
organ at the chest branches off another coil about as thick as ordinary twine; and underneath there are two
granular seminal bodies in juxta-position with the gut. These are the organs of the male. The female has
red-coloured eggs, which are adjacent to the stomach and to each side of the gut all along to the fleshy parts,

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

being enveloped in a thin membrane.

Such are the parts, internal and external, of the carid.

The inner organs of sanguineous animals happen to have specific designations; for these animals have in all
cases the inner viscera, but this is not the case with the bloodless animals, but what they have in common
with red-blooded animals is the stomach, the oesophagus, and the gut.

With regard to the crab, it has already been stated that it has claws and feet, and their position has been set
forth; furthermore, for the most part they have the right claw bigger and stronger than the left. It has also been
stated' that in general the eyes of the crab look sideways. Further, the trunk of the crab's body is single and
undivided, including its head and any other part it may possess. Some crabs have eyes placed sideways on the
upper part, immediately under the back, and standing a long way apart, and some have their eyes in the centre
and close together, like the crabs of Heracleotis and the so-called 'grannies'. The mouth lies underneath the
eyes, and inside it there are two teeth, as is the case with the crawfish, only that in the crab the teeth are not
rounded but long; and over the teeth are two lids, and in betwixt them are structures such as the crawfish has
besides its teeth. The crab takes in water near by the mouth, using the lids as a check to the inflow, and
discharges the water by two passages above the mouth, closing by means of the lids the way by which it
entered; and the two passage-ways are underneath the eyes. When it has taken in water it closes its mouth by
means of both lids, and ejects the water in the way above described. Next after the teeth comes the
oesophagus, very short, so short in fact that the stomach seems to come straightway after the mouth. Next
after the oesophagus comes the stomach, two-horned, to the centre of which is attached a simple and delicate
gut; and the gut terminates outwards, at the operculum, as has been previously stated. (The crab has the parts
in between the lids in the neighbourhood of the teeth similar to the same parts in the crawfish.) Inside the
trunk is a sallow juice and some few little bodies, long and white, and others spotted red. The male differs
from the female in size and breadth, and in respect of the ventral flap; for this is larger in the female than in
the male, and stands out further from the trunk, and is more hairy (as is the case also with the female in the
crawfish).

So much, then, for the organs of the malacostraca or Crustacea.

With the ostracoderma, or testaceans, such as the land-snails and the sea-snails, and all the 'oysters'
so-called, and also with the sea-urchin genus, the fleshy part, in such as have flesh, is similarly situated to
the fleshy part in the crustaceans; in other words, it is inside the animal, and the shell is outside, and there is
no hard substance in the interior. As compared with one another the testaceans present many diversities both
in regard to their shells and to the flesh within. Some of them have no flesh at all, as the sea-urchin; others
have flesh, but it is inside and wholly hidden, except the head, as in the land-snails, and the so-called
cocalia, and, among pelagic animals, in the purple murex, the ceryx or trumpet-shell, the sea-snail, and the
spiral-shaped testaceans in general. Of the rest, some are bivalved and some univalved; and by 'bivalves' I
mean such as are enclosed within two shells, and by 'univalved' such as are enclosed within a single shell, and
in these last the fleshy part is exposed, as in the case of the limpet. Of the bivalves, some can open out, like
the scallop and the mussel; for all such shells are grown together on one side and are separate on the other, so
as to open and shut. Other bivalves are closed on both sides alike, like the solen or razor-fish. Some
testaceans there are, that are entirely enveloped in shell and expose no portion of their flesh outside, as the
tethya or ascidians.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

Again, in regard to the shells themselves, the testaceans present differences when compared with one another.
Some are smooth-shelled, like the solen, the mussel, and some clams, viz. those that are nicknamed
'milkshells', while others are rough-shelled, such as the pool-oyster or edible oyster, the pinna, and certain
species of cockles, and the trumpet shells; and of these some are ribbed, such as the scallop and a certain kind
of clam or cockle, and some are devoid of ribs, as the pinna and another species of clam. Testaceans also
differ from one another in regard to the thickness or thinness of their shell, both as regards the shell in its
entirety and as regards specific parts of the shell, for instance, the lips; for some have thin-lipped shells, like
the mussel, and others have thick-lipped shells, like the oyster. A property common to the above mentioned,
and, in fact, to all testaceans, is the smoothness of their shells inside. Some also are capable of motion, like
the scallop, and indeed some aver that scallops can actually fly, owing to the circumstance that they often
jump right out of the apparatus by means of which they are caught; others are incapable of motion and are
attached fast to some external object, as is the case with the pinna. All the spiral-shaped testaceans can move
and creep, and even the limpet relaxes its hold to go in quest of food. In the case of the univalves and the
bivalves, the fleshy substance adheres to the shell so tenaciously that it can only be removed by an effort; in
the case of the stromboids, it is more loosely attached. And a peculiarity of all the stromboids is the spiral
twist of the shell in the part farthest away from the head; they are also furnished from birth with an
operculum. And, further, all stromboid testaceans have their shells on the right hand side, and move not in the
direction of the spire, but the opposite way. Such are the diversities observed in the external parts of these
animals.

The internal structure is almost the same in all these creatures, and in the stromboids especially; for it is in
size that these latter differ from one another, and in accidents of the nature of excess or defect. And there is
not much difference between most of the univalves and bivalves; but, while those that open and shut differ
from one another but slightly, they differ considerably from such as are incapable of motion. And this will be
illustrated more satisfactorily hereafter.

The spiral-shaped testaceans are all similarly constructed, but differ from one another, as has been said, in
the way of excess or defect (for the larger species have larger and more conspicuous organs, and the smaller
have smaller and less conspicuous), and, furthermore, in relative hardness or softness, and in other such
accidents or properties. All the stromboids, for instance, have the flesh that extrudes from the mouth of the
shell, hard and stiff; some more, and some less. From the middle of this protrudes the head and two horns,
and these horns are large in the large species, but exceedingly minute in the smaller ones. The head protrudes
from them all in the same way; and, if the animal be alarmed, the head draws in again. Some of these
creatures have a mouth and teeth, as the snail; teeth sharp, and small, and delicate. They have also a proboscis
just like that of the fly; and the proboscis is tongue-shaped. The ceryx and the purple murex have this organ
firm and solid; and just as the myops, or horse-fly, and the oestrus, or gadfly, can pierce the skin of a
quadruped, so is that proboscis proportionately stronger in these testaceans; for they bore right through the
shells of other shell-fish on which they prey. The stomach follows close upon the mouth, and, by the way,
this organ in the snail resembles a bird's crop. Underneath come two white firm formations, mastoid or
papillary in form; and similar formations are found in the cuttle-fish also, only that they are of a firmer
consistency in the cuttle-fish. After the stomach comes an oesophagus, simple and long, extending to the
poppy or quasi-liver, which is in the innermost recess of the shell. All these statements may be verified in the
case of the purple murex and the ceryx by observation within the whorl of the shell. What comes next to the
oesophagus is the gut; in fact, the gut is continuous with the oesophagus, and runs its whole length
uncomplicated to the outlet of the residuum. The gut has its point of origin in the region of the coil of the
mecon, or so-called 'poppy', and is wider hereabouts (for remember, the mecon is for the most part a sort of
excretion in all testaceans); it then takes a bend and runs up again towards the fleshy part, and terminates by
the side of the head, where the animal discharges its residuum; and this holds good in the case of all
stromboid testaceans, whether terrestrial or marine. From the stomach there is drawn in a parallel direction
with the oesophagus, in the larger snails, a long white duct enveloped in a membrane, resembling in colour
the mastoid formations higher up; and in it are nicks or interruptions, as in the egg-mass of the crawfish,

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

only, by the way, the duct of which we are treating is white and the egg-mass of the crawfish is red. This
formation has no outlet nor duct, but is enveloped in a thin membrane with a narrow cavity in its interior.
And from the gut downward extend black and rough formations, in close connexion, something like the
formations in the tortoise, only not so black. Marine snails, also, have these formations, and the white ones,
only that the formations are smaller in the smaller species.

The non-spiral univalves and bivalves are in some respect similar in construction, and in some respects
dissimilar, to the spiral testaceans. They all have a head and horns, and a mouth, and the organ resembling a
tongue; but these organs, in the smaller species, are indiscernible owing to the minuteness of these animals,
and some are indiscernible even in the larger species when dead, or when at rest and motionless. They all
have the mecon, or poppy, but not all in the same place, nor of equal size, nor similarly open to observation;
thus, the limpets have this organ deep down in the bottom of the shell, and the bivalves at the hinge
connecting the two valves. They also have in all cases the hairy growths or beards, in a circular form, as in
the scallops. And, with regard to the so-called 'egg', in those that have it, when they have it, it is situated in
one of the semi-circles of the periphery, as is the case with the white formation in the snail; for this white
formation in the snail corresponds to the so-called egg of which we are speaking. But all these organs, as has
been stated, are distinctly traceable in the larger species, while in the small ones they are in some cases
almost, and in others altogether, indiscernible. Hence they are most plainly visible in the large scallops; and
these are the bivalves that have one valve flat-shaped, like the lid of a pot. The outlet of the excretion is in all
these animals (save for the exception to be afterwards related) on one side; for there is a passage whereby the
excretion passes out. (And, remember, the mecon or poppy, as has been stated, is an excretion in all these
animals-an excretion enveloped in a membrane.) The so-called egg has no outlet in any of these creatures,
but is merely an excrescence in the fleshy mass; and it is not situated in the same region with the gut, but the
'egg' is situated on the right-hand side and the gut on the left. Such are the relations of the anal vent in most
of these animals; but in the case of the wild limpet (called by some the 'sea-ear'), the residuum issues beneath
the shell, for the shell is perforated to give an outlet. In this particular limpet the stomach is seen coming after
the mouth, and the egg-shaped formations are discernible. But for the relative positions of these parts you are
referred to my Treatise on Anatomy.

The so-called carcinium or hermit crab is in a way intermediate between the crustaceans and the testaceans.
In its nature it resembles the crawfish kind, and it is born simple of itself, but by its habit of introducing itself
into a shell and living there it resembles the testaceans, and so appears to partake of the characters of both
kinds. In shape, to give a simple illustration, it resembles a spider, only that the part below the head and
thorax is larger in this creature than in the spider. It has two thin red horns, and underneath these horns two
long eyes, not retreating inwards, nor turning sideways like the eyes of the crab, but protruding straight out;
and underneath these eyes the mouth, and round about the mouth several hair-like growths, and next after
these two bifurcate legs or claws, whereby it draws in objects towards itself, and two other legs on either side,
and a third small one. All below the thorax is soft, and when opened in dissection is found to be
sallow-coloured within. From the mouth there runs a single passage right on to the stomach, but the passage
for the excretions is not discernible. The legs and the thorax are hard, but not so hard as the legs and the
thorax of the crab. It does not adhere to its shell like the purple murex and the ceryx, but can easily slip out of
it. It is longer when found in the shell of the stromboids than when found in the shell of the neritae.

And, by the way, the animal found in the shell of the neritae is a separate species, like to the other in most
respects; but of its bifurcate feet or claws, the right-hand one is small and the left-hand one is large, and it
progresses chiefly by the aid of this latter and larger one. (In the shells of these animals, and in certain others,
there is found a parasite whose mode of attachment is similar. The particular one which we have just
described is named the cyllarus.)

The nerites has a smooth large round shell, and resembles the ceryx in shape, only the poppy-juice is, in its
case, not black but red. It clings with great force near the middle. In calm weather, then, they go free afield,

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HISTORY OF ANIMALS

but when the wind blows the carcinia take shelter against the rocks: the neritae themselves cling fast like
limpets; and the same is the case with the haemorrhoid or aporrhaid and all others of the like kind. And, by
the way, they cling to the rock, when they turn back their operculum, for this operculum seems like a lid; in
fact this structure represents the one part, in the stromboids, of that which in the bivalves is a duplicate shell.
The interior of the animal is fleshy, and the mouth is inside. And it is the same with the haemorrhoid, the
purple murex, and all suchlike animals.

Such of the little crabs as have the left foot or claw the bigger of the two are found in the neritae, but not in
the stromboids. are some snail-shells which have inside them creatures resembling those little crayfish that
are also found in fresh water. These creatures, however, differ in having the part inside the shells But as to the
characters, you are referred to my Treatise on Anatomy.

The urchins are devoid of flesh, and this is a character peculiar to them; and while they are in all cases empty
and devoid of any flesh within, they are in all cases furnished with the black formations. There are several
species of the urchin, and one of these is that which is made use of for food; this is the kind in which are
found the so-called eggs, large and edible, in the larger and smaller specimens alike; for even when as yet
very small they are provided with them. There are two other species, the spatangus, and the so-called
bryssus, these animals are pelagic and scarce. Further, there are the echinometrae, or 'mother-urchins', the
largest in size of all the species. In addition to these there is another species, small in size, but furnished with
large hard spines; it lives in the sea at a depth of several fathoms; and is used by some people as a specific for
cases of strangury. In the neighbourhood of Torone there are sea-urchins of a white colour, shells, spines,
eggs and all, and that are longer than the ordinary sea-urchin. The spine in this species is not large nor
strong, but rather limp; and the black formations in connexion with the mouth are more than usually
numerous, and communicate with the external duct, but not with one another; in point of fact, the animal is in
a manner divided up by them. The edible urchin moves with greatest freedom and most often; and this is
indicated by the fact that these urchins have always something or other on their spines.

All urchins are supplied with eggs, but in some of the species the eggs are exceedingly small and unfit for
food. Singularly enough, the urchin has what we may call its head and mouth down below, and a place for the
issue of the residuum up above; (and this same property is common to all stromboids and to limpets). For the
food on which the creature lives lies down below; consequently the mouth has a position well adapted for
getting at the food, and the excretion is above, near to the back of the shell. The urchin has, also, five hollow
teeth inside, and in the middle of these teeth a fleshy substance serving the office of a tongue. Next to this
comes the oesophagus, and then the stomach, divided into five parts, and filled with excretion, all the five
parts uniting at the anal vent, where the shell is perforated for an outlet. Underneath the stomach, in another
membrane, are the so-called eggs, identical in number in all cases, and that number is always an odd number,
to wit five. Up above, the black formations are attached to the starting-point of the teeth, and they are bitter
to the taste, and unfit for food. A similar or at least an analogous formation is found in many animals; as, for
instance, in the tortoise, the toad, the frog, the stromboids, and, generally, in the molluscs; but the formation
varies here and there in colour, and in all cases is altogether uneatable, or more or less unpalatable. In reality
the mouth-apparatus of the urchin is continuous from one end to the other, but to outward appearance it is
not so, but looks like a horn lantern with the panes of horn left out. The urchin uses its spines as feet; for it
rests its weight on these, and then moving shifts from place to place.

The so-called tethyum or ascidian has of all these animals the most remarkable characteristics. It is the only
mollusc that has its entire body concealed within its shell, and the shell is a substance intermediate between

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hide and shell, so that it cuts like a piece of hard leather. It is attached to rocks by its shell, and is provided
with two passages placed at a distance from one another, very minute and hard to see, whereby it admits and
discharges the sea-water; for it has no visible excretion (whereas of shell fish in general some resemble the
urchin in this matter of excretion, and others are provided with the so-called mecon, or poppy-juice). If the
animal be opened, it is found to have, in the first place, a tendinous membrane running round inside the
shell-like substance, and within this membrane is the flesh-like substance of the ascidian, not resembling
that in other molluscs; but this flesh, to which I now allude, is the same in all ascidia. And this substance is
attached in two places to the membrane and the skin, obliquely; and at the point of attachment the space is
narrowed from side to side, where the fleshy substance stretches towards the passages that lead outwards
through the shell; and here it discharges and admits food and liquid matter, just as it would if one of the
passages were a mouth and the other an anal vent; and one of the passages is somewhat wider than the other
Inside it has a pair of cavities, one on either side, a small partition separating them; and one of these two
cavities contains the liquid. The creature has no other organ whether motor or sensory, nor, as was said in the
case of the others, is it furnished with any organ connected with excretion, as other shell-fish are. The colour
of the ascidian is in some cases sallow, and in other cases red.

There is, furthermore, the genus of the sea-nettles, peculiar in its way. The sea-nettle, or sea-anemone,
clings to rocks like certain of the testaceans, but at times relaxes its hold. It has no shell, but its entire body is
fleshy. It is sensitive to touch, and, if you put your hand to it, it will seize and cling to it, as the cuttlefish
would do with its feelers, and in such a way as to make the flesh of your hand swell up. Its mouth is in the
centre of its body, and it lives adhering to the rock as an oyster to its shell. If any little fish come up against it
it it clings to it; in fact, just as I described it above as doing to your hand, so it does to anything edible that
comes in its way; and it feeds upon sea-urchins and scallops. Another species of the sea-nettle roams freely
abroad. The sea-nettle appears to be devoid altogether of excretion, and in this respect it resembles a plant.

Of sea-nettles there are two species, the lesser and more edible, and the large hard ones, such as are found in
the neighbourhood of Chalcis. In winter time their flesh is firm, and accordingly they are sought after as
articles of food, but in summer weather they are worthless, for they become thin and watery, and if you catch
at them they break at once into bits, and cannot be taken off the rocks entire; and being oppressed by the heat
they tend to slip back into the crevices of the rocks.

So much for the external and the internal organs of molluscs, crustaceans, and testaceans.

We now proceed to treat of insects in like manner. This genus comprises many species, and, though several
kinds are clearly related to one another, these are not classified under one common designation, as in the case
of the bee, the drone, the wasp, and all such insects, and again as in the case of those that have their wings in
a sheath or shard, like the cockchafer, the carabus or stag-beetle, the cantharis or blister-beetle, and the like.

Insects have three parts common to them all; the head, the trunk containing the stomach, and a third part in
betwixt these two, corresponding to what in other creatures embraces chest and back. In the majority of
insects this intermediate part is single; but in the long and multipedal insects it has practically the same
number of segments as of nicks.

All insects when cut in two continue to live, excepting such as are naturally cold by nature, or such as from
their minute size chill rapidly; though, by the way, wasps notwithstanding their small size continue living
after severance. In conjunction with the middle portion either the head or the stomach can live, but the head
cannot live by itself. Insects that are long in shape and many-footed can live for a long while after being cut
in twain, and the severed portions can move in either direction, backwards or forwards; thus, the hinder

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portion, if cut off, can crawl either in the direction of the section or in the direction of the tail, as is observed
in the scolopendra.

All insects have eyes, but no other organ of sense discernible, except that some insects have a kind of a
tongue corresponding to a similar organ common to all testaceans; and by this organ such insects taste and
imbibe their food. In some insects this organ is soft; in other insects it is firm; as it is, by the way, in the
purple-fish, among testaceans. In the horsefly and the gadfly this organ is hard, and indeed it is hard in most
insects. In point of fact, such insects as have no sting in the rear use this organ as a weapon, (and, by the way,
such insects as are provided with this organ are unprovided with teeth, with the exception of a few insects);
the fly by a touch can draw blood with this organ, and the gnat can prick or sting with it.

Certain insects are furnished with prickers or stings. Some insects have the sting inside, as the bee and the
wasp, others outside, as the scorpion; and, by the way, this is the only insect furnished with a long tail. And,
further, the scorpion is furnished with claws, as is also the creature resembling a scorpion found within the
pages of books.

In addition to their other organs, flying insects are furnished with wings. Some insects are dipterous or
double-winged, as the fly; others are tetrapterous or furnished with four wings, as the bee; and, by the way,
no insect with only two wings has a sting in the rear. Again, some winged insects have a sheath or shard for
their wings, as the cockchafer; whereas in others the wings are unsheathed, as in the bee. But in the case of all
alike, flight is in no way modified by tail-steerage, and the wing is devoid of quill-structure or division of
any kind.

Again, some insects have antennae in front of their eyes, as the butterfly and the horned beetle. Such of them
as have the power of jumping have the hinder legs the longer; and these long hind-legs whereby they jump
bend backwards like the hind-legs of quadrupeds. All insects have the belly different from the back; as, in
fact, is the case with all animals. The flesh of an insect's body is neither shell-like nor is it like the internal
substance of shell-covered animals, nor is it like flesh in the ordinary sense of the term; but it is a something
intermediate in quality. Wherefore they have nor spine, nor bone, nor sepia-bone, nor enveloping shell; but
their body by its hardness is its own protection and requires no extraneous support. However, insects have a
skin; but the skin is exceedingly thin. These and such-like are the external organs of insects.

Internally, next after the mouth, comes a gut, in the majority of cases straight and simple down to the outlet
of the residuum: but in a few cases the gut is coiled. No insect is provided with any viscera, or is supplied
with fat; and these statements apply to all animals devoid of blood. Some have a stomach also, and attached
to this the rest of the gut, either simple or convoluted as in the case of the acris or grasshopper.

The tettix or cicada, alone of such creatures (and, in fact, alone of all creatures), is unprovided with a mouth,
but it is provided with the tongue-like formation found in insects furnished with frontward stings; and this
formation in the cicada is long, continuous, and devoid of any split; and by the aid of this the creature feeds
on dew, and on dew only, and in its stomach no excretion is ever found. Of the cicada there are several kinds,
and they differ from one another in relative magnitude, and in this respect that the achetes or chirper is
provided with a cleft or aperture under the hypozoma and has in it a membrane quite discernible, whilst the
membrane is indiscernible in the tettigonia.

Furthermore, there are some strange creatures to be found in the sea, which from their rarity we are unable to
classify. Experienced fishermen affirm, some that they have at times seen in the sea animals like sticks, black,
rounded, and of the same thickness throughout; others that they have seen creatures resembling shields, red in
colour, and furnished with fins packed close together; and others that they have seen creatures resembling the
male organ in shape and size, with a pair of fins in the place of the testicles, and they aver that on one
occasion a creature of this description was brought up on the end of a nightline.

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So much then for the parts, external and internal, exceptional and common, of all animals.

We now proceed to treat of the senses; for there are diversities in animals with regard to the senses, seeing
that some animals have the use of all the senses, and others the use of a limited number of them. The total
number of the senses (for we have no experience of any special sense not here included), is five: sight,
hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

Man, then, and all vivipara that have feet, and, further, all red-blooded ovipara, appear to have the use of all
the five senses, except where some isolated species has been subjected to mutilation, as in the case of the
mole. For this animal is deprived of sight; it has no eyes visible, but if the skin-a thick one, by the way-be
stripped off the head, about the place in the exterior where eyes usually are, the eyes are found inside in a
stunted condition, furnished with all the parts found in ordinary eyes; that is to say, we find there the black
rim, and the fatty part surrounding it; but all these parts are smaller than the same parts in ordinary visible
eyes. There is no external sign of the existence of these organs in the mole, owing to the thickness of the skin
drawn over them, so that it would seem that the natural course of development were congenitally arrested;
(for extending from the brain at its junction with the marrow are two strong sinewy ducts running past the
sockets of the eyes, and terminating at the upper eye-teeth). All the other animals of the kinds above
mentioned have a perception of colour and of sound, and the senses of smell and taste; the fifth sense, that,
namely, of touch, is common to all animals whatsoever.

In some animals the organs of sense are plainly discernible; and this is especially the case with the eyes. For
animals have a special locality for the eyes, and also a special locality for hearing: that is to say, some
animals have ears, while others have the passage for sound discernible. It is the same with the sense of smell;
that is to say, some animals have nostrils, and others have only the passages for smell, such as birds. It is the
same also with the organ of taste, the tongue. Of aquatic red-blooded animals, fishes possess the organ of
taste, namely the tongue, but it is in an imperfect and amorphous form, in other words it is osseous and
undetached. In some fish the palate is fleshy, as in the fresh-water carp, so that by an inattentive observer it
might be mistaken for a tongue.

There is no doubt but that fishes have the sense of taste, for a great number of them delight in special
flavours; and fishes freely take the hook if it be baited with a piece of flesh from a tunny or from any fat fish,
obviously enjoying the taste and the eating of food of this kind. Fishes have no visible organs for hearing or
for smell; for what might appear to indicate an organ for smell in the region of the nostril has no
communication with the brain. These indications, in fact, in some cases lead nowhere, like blind alleys, and
in other cases lead only to the gills; but for all this fishes undoubtedly hear and smell. For they are observed
to run away from any loud noise, such as would be made by the rowing of a galley, so as to become easy of
capture in their holes; for, by the way, though a sound be very slight in the open air, it has a loud and
alarming resonance to creatures that hear under water. And this is shown in the capture of the dolphin; for
when the hunters have enclosed a shoal of these fishes with a ring of their canoes, they set up from inside the
canoes a loud splashing in the water, and by so doing induce the creatures to run in a shoal high and dry up
on the beach, and so capture them while stupefied with the noise. And yet, for all this, the dolphin has no
organ of hearing discernible. Furthermore, when engaged in their craft, fishermen are particularly careful to
make no noise with oar or net; and after they have spied a shoal, they let down their nets at a spot so far off
that they count upon no noise being likely to reach the shoal, occasioned either by oar or by the surging of
their boats through the water; and the crews are strictly enjoined to preserve silence until the shoal has been
surrounded. And, at times, when they want the fish to crowd together, they adopt the stratagem of the
dolphin-hunter; in other words they clatter stones together, that the fish may, in their fright, gather close into
one spot, and so they envelop them within their nets. (Before surrounding them, then, they preserve silence,

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as was said; but, after hemming the shoal in, they call on every man to shout out aloud and make any kind of
noise; for on hearing the noise and hubbub the fish are sure to tumble into the nets from sheer fright.) Further,
when fishermen see a shoal of fish feeding at a distance, disporting themselves in calm bright weather on the
surface of the water, if they are anxious to descry the size of the fish and to learn what kind of a fish it is, they
may succeed in coming upon the shoal whilst yet basking at the surface if they sail up without the slightest
noise, but if any man make a noise previously, the shoal will be seen to scurry away in alarm. Again, there is
a small river-fish called the cottus or bullhead; this creature burrows under a rock, and fishers catch it by
clattering stones against the rock, and the fish, bewildered at the noise, darts out of its hiding-place. From
these facts it is quite obvious that fishes can hear; and indeed some people, from living near the sea and
frequently witnessing such phenomena, affirm that of all living creatures the fish is the quickest of hearing.
And, by the way, of all fishes the quickest of hearing are the cestreus or mullet, the chremps, the labrax or
basse, the salpe or saupe, the chromis or sciaena, and such like. Other fishes are less quick of hearing, and, as
might be expected, are more apt to be found living at the bottom of the sea.

The case is similar in regard to the sense of smell. Thus, as a rule, fishes will not touch a bait that is not fresh,
neither are they all caught by one and the same bait, but they are severally caught by baits suited to their
several likings, and these baits they distinguish by their sense of smell; and, by the way, some fishes are
attracted by malodorous baits, as the saupe, for instance, is attracted by excrement. Again, a number of fishes
live in caves; and accordingly fishermen, when they want to entice them out, smear the mouth of a cave with
strong-smelling pickles, and the fish are Soon attracted to the smell. And the eel is caught in a similar way;
for the fisherman lays down an earthen pot that has held pickles, after inserting a 'weel' in the neck thereof.
As a general rule, fishes are especially attracted by savoury smells. For this reason, fishermen roast the fleshy
parts of the cuttle-fish and use it as bait on account of its smell, for fish are peculiarly attracted by it; they
also bake the octopus and bait their fish-baskets or weels with it, entirely, as they say, on account of its
smell. Furthermore, gregarious fishes, if fish washings or bilge-water be thrown overboard, are observed to
scud off to a distance, from apparent dislike of the smell. And it is asserted that they can at once detect by
smell the presence of their own blood; and this faculty is manifested by their hurrying off to a great distance
whenever fish-blood is spilt in the sea. And, as a general rule, if you bait your weel with a stinking bait, the
fish refuse to enter the weel or even to draw near; but if you bait the weel with a fresh and savoury bait, they
come at once from long distances and swim into it. And all this is particularly manifest in the dolphin; for, as
was stated, it has no visible organ of hearing, and yet it is captured when stupefied with noise; and so, while it
has no visible organ for smell, it has the sense of smell remarkably keen. It is manifest, then, that the animals
above mentioned are in possession of all the five senses.

All other animals may, with very few exceptions, be comprehended within four genera: to wit, molluscs,
crustaceans, testaceans, and insects. Of these four genera, the mollusc, the crustacean, and the insect have all
the senses: at all events, they have sight, smell, and taste. As for insects, both winged and wingless, they can
detect the presence of scented objects afar off, as for instance bees and snipes detect the presence of honey at
a distance; and do so recognizing it by smell. Many insects are killed by the smell of brimstone; ants, if the
apertures to their dwellings be smeared with powdered origanum and brimstone, quit their nests; and most
insects may be banished with burnt hart's horn, or better still by the burning of the gum styrax. The
cuttle-fish, the octopus, and the crawfish may be caught by bait. The octopus, in fact, clings so tightly to the
rocks that it cannot be pulled off, but remains attached even when the knife is employed to sever it; and yet, if
you apply fleabane to the creature, it drops off at the very smell of it. The facts are similar in regard to taste.
For the food that insects go in quest of is of diverse kinds, and they do not all delight in the same flavours: for
instance, the bee never settles on a withered or wilted flower, but on fresh and sweet ones; and the conops or
gnat settles only on acrid substances and not on sweet. The sense of touch, by the way, as has been remarked,
is common to all animals. Testaceans have the senses of smell and taste. With regard to their possession of
the sense of smell, that is proved by the use of baits, e.g. in the case of the purple-fish; for this creature is
enticed by baits of rancid meat, which it perceives and is attracted to from a great distance. The proof that it
possesses a sense of taste hangs by the proof of its sense of smell; for whenever an animal is attracted to a

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thing by perceiving its smell, it is sure to like the taste of it. Further, all animals furnished with a mouth
derive pleasure or pain from the touch of sapid juices.

With regard to sight and hearing, we cannot make statements with thorough confidence or on irrefutable
evidence. However, the solen or razor-fish, if you make a noise, appears to burrow in the sand, and to hide
himself deeper when he hears the approach of the iron rod (for the animal, be it observed, juts a little out of
its hole, while the greater part of the body remains within),-and scallops, if you present your finger near their
open valves, close them tight again as though they could see what you were doing. Furthermore, when
fishermen are laying bait for neritae, they always get to leeward of them, and never speak a word while so
engaged, under the firm impression that the animal can smell and hear; and they assure us that, if any one
speaks aloud, the creature makes efforts to escape. With regard to testaceans, of the walking or creeping
species the urchin appears to have the least developed sense of smell; and, of the stationary species, the
ascidian and the barnacle.

So much for the organs of sense in the general run of animals. We now proceed to treat of voice.

Voice and sound are different from one another; and language differs from voice and sound. The fact is that
no animal can give utterance to voice except by the action of the pharynx, and consequently such animals as
are devoid of lung have no voice; and language is the articulation of vocal sounds by the instrumentality of
the tongue. Thus, the voice and larynx can emit vocal or vowel sounds; non-vocal or consonantal sounds are
made by the tongue and the lips; and out of these vocal and non-vocal sounds language is composed.
Consequently, animals that have no tongue at all or that have a tongue not freely detached, have neither voice
nor language; although, by the way, they may be enabled to make noises or sounds by other organs than the
tongue.

Insects, for instance, have no voice and no language, but they can emit sound by internal air or wind, though
not by the emission of air or wind; for no insects are capable of respiration. But some of them make a
humming noise, like the bee and the other winged insects; and others are said to sing, as the cicada. And all
these latter insects make their special noises by means of the membrane that is underneath the
'hypozoma'-those insects, that is to say, whose body is thus divided; as for instance, one species of cicada,
which makes the sound by means of the friction of the air. Flies and bees, and the like, produce their special
noise by opening and shutting their wings in the act of flying; for the noise made is by the friction of air
between the wings when in motion. The noise made by grasshoppers is produced by rubbing or reverberating
with their long hind-legs.

No mollusc or crustacean can produce any natural voice or sound. Fishes can produce no voice, for they have
no lungs, nor windpipe and pharynx; but they emit certain inarticulate sounds and squeaks, which is what is
called their 'voice', as the lyra or gurnard, and the sciaena (for these fishes make a grunting kind of noise) and
the caprus or boar-fish in the river Achelous, and the chalcis and the cuckoo-fish; for the chalcis makes a
sort piping sound, and the cuckoo-fish makes a sound greatly like the cry of the cuckoo, and is nicknamed
from the circumstance. The apparent voice in all these fishes is a sound caused in some cases by a rubbing
motion of their gills, which by the way are prickly, or in other cases by internal parts about their bellies; for
they all have air or wind inside them, by rubbing and moving which they produce the sounds. Some
cartilaginous fish seem to squeak.

But in these cases the term 'voice' is inappropriate; the more correct expression would be 'sound'. For the
scallop, when it goes along supporting itself on the water, which is technically called 'flying', makes a
whizzing sound; and so does the sea-swallow or flying-fish: for this fish flies in the air, clean out of the

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water, being furnished with fins broad and long. Just then as in the flight of birds the sound made by their
wings is obviously not voice, so is it in the case of all these other creatures.

The dolphin, when taken out of the water, gives a squeak and moans in the air, but these noises do not
resemble those above mentioned. For this creature has a voice (and can therefore utter vocal or vowel
sounds), for it is furnished with a lung and a windpipe; but its tongue is not loose, nor has it lips, so as to give
utterance to an articulate sound (or a sound of vowel and consonant in combination.)

Of animals which are furnished with tongue and lung, the oviparous quadrupeds produce a voice, but a feeble
one; in some cases, a shrill piping sound, like the serpent; in others, a thin faint cry; in others, a low hiss, like
the tortoise. The formation of the tongue in the frog is exceptional. The front part of the tongue, which in
other animals is detached, is tightly fixed in the frog as it is in all fishes; but the part towards the pharynx is
freely detached, and may, so to speak, be spat outwards, and it is with this that it makes its peculiar croak.
The croaking that goes on in the marsh is the call of the males to the females at rutting time; and, by the way,
all animals have a special cry for the like end at the like season, as is observed in the case of goats, swine, and
sheep. (The bull-frog makes its croaking noise by putting its under jaw on a level with the surface of the
water and extending its upper jaw to its utmost capacity. The tension is so great that the upper jaw becomes
transparent, and the animal's eyes shine through the jaw like lamps; for, by the way, the commerce of the
sexes takes place usually in the night time.) Birds can utter vocal sounds; and such of them can articulate best
as have the tongue moderately flat, and also such as have thin delicate tongues. In some cases, the male and
the female utter the same note; in other cases, different notes. The smaller birds are more vocal and given to
chirping than the larger ones; but in the pairing season every species of bird becomes particularly vocal.
Some of them call when fighting, as the quail, others cry or crow when challenging to combat, as the
partridge, or when victorious, as the barn-door cock. In some cases cock-birds and hens sing alike, as is
observed in the nightingale, only that the hen stops singing when brooding or rearing her young; in other
birds, the cocks sing more than the hens; in fact, with barn-door fowls and quails, the cock sings and the hen
does not.

Viviparous quadrupeds utter vocal sounds of different kinds, but they have no power of converse. In fact, this
power, or language, is peculiar to man. For while the capability of talking implies the capability of uttering
vocal sounds, the converse does not hold good. Men that are born deaf are in all cases also dumb; that is, they
can make vocal sounds, but they cannot speak. Children, just as they have no control over other parts, so have
no control, at first, over the tongue; but it is so far imperfect, and only frees and detaches itself by degrees, so
that in the interval children for the most part lisp and stutter.

Vocal sounds and modes of language differ according to locality. Vocal sounds are characterized chiefly by
their pitch, whether high or low, and the kinds of sound capable of being produced are identical within the
limits of one and the same species; but articulate sound, that one might reasonably designate 'language',
differs both in various animals, and also in the same species according to diversity of locality; as for instance,
some partridges cackle, and some make a shrill twittering noise. Of little birds, some sing a different note
from the parent birds, if they have been removed from the nest and have heard other birds singing; and a
mother-nightingale has been observed to give lessons in singing to a young bird, from which spectacle we
might obviously infer that the song of the bird was not equally congenital with mere voice, but was
something capable of modification and of improvement. Men have the same voice or vocal sounds, but they
differ from one another in speech or language.

The elephant makes a vocal sound of a windlike sort by the mouth alone, unaided by the trunk, just like the
sound of a man panting or sighing; but, if it employ the trunk as well, the sound produced is like that of a
hoarse trumpet.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

With regard to the sleeping and waking of animals, all creatures that are red-blooded and provided with legs
give sensible proof that they go to sleep and that they waken up from sleep; for, as a matter of fact, all
animals that are furnished with eyelids shut them up when they go to sleep. Furthermore, it would appear that
not only do men dream, but horses also, and dogs, and oxen; aye, and sheep, and goats, and all viviparous
quadrupeds; and dogs show their dreaming by barking in their sleep. With regard to oviparous animals we
cannot be sure that they dream, but most undoubtedly they sleep. And the same may be said of water animals,
such as fishes, molluscs, crustaceans, to wit crawfish and the like. These animals sleep without doubt,
although their sleep is of very short duration. The proof of their sleeping cannot be got from the condition of
their eyes-for none of these creatures are furnished with eyelids-but can be obtained only from their
motionless repose.

Apart from the irritation caused by lice and what are nicknamed fleas, fish are met with in a state so
motionless that one might easily catch them by hand; and, as a matter of fact, these little creatures, if the fish
remain long in one position, will attack them in myriads and devour them. For these parasites are found in the
depths of the sea, and are so numerous that they devour any bait made of fish's flesh if it be left long on the
ground at the bottom; and fishermen often draw up a cluster of them, all clinging on to the bait.

But it is from the following facts that we may more reasonably infer that fishes sleep. Very often it is possible
to take a fish off its guard so far as to catch hold of it or to give it a blow unawares; and all the while that you
are preparing to catch or strike it, the fish is quite still but for a slight motion of the tail. And it is quite
obvious that the animal is sleeping, from its movements if any disturbance be made during its repose; for it
moves just as you would expect in a creature suddenly awakened. Further, owing to their being asleep, fish
may be captured by torchlight. The watchmen in the tunny-fishery often take advantage of the fish being
asleep to envelop them in a circle of nets; and it is quite obvious that they were thus sleeping by their lying
still and allowing the glistening under-parts of their bodies to become visible, while the capture is taking
Place. They sleep in the night-time more than during the day; and so soundly at night that you may cast the
net without making them stir. Fish, as a general rule, sleep close to the ground, or to the sand or to a stone at
the bottom, or after concealing themselves under a rock or the ground. Flat fish go to sleep in the sand; and
they can be distinguished by the outlines of their shapes in the sand, and are caught in this position by being
speared with pronged instruments. The basse, the chrysophrys or gilt-head, the mullet, and fish of the like
sort are often caught in the daytime by the prong owing to their having been surprised when sleeping; for it is
scarcely probable that fish could be pronged while awake. Cartilaginous fish sleep at times so soundly that
they may be caught by hand. The dolphin and the whale, and all such as are furnished with a blow-hole,
sleep with the blow-hole over the surface of the water, and breathe through the blow-hole while they keep
up a quiet flapping of their fins; indeed, some mariners assure us that they have actually heard the dolphin
snoring.

Molluscs sleep like fishes, and crustaceans also. It is plain also that insects sleep; for there can be no
mistaking their condition of motionless repose. In the bee the fact of its being asleep is very obvious; for at
night-time bees are at rest and cease to hum. But the fact that insects sleep may be very well seen in the case
of common every-day creatures; for not only do they rest at night-time from dimness of vision (and, by the
way, all hard-eyed creatures see but indistinctly), but even if a lighted candle be presented they continue
sleeping quite as soundly.

Of all animals man is most given to dreaming. Children and infants do not dream, but in most cases dreaming
comes on at the age of four or five years. Instances have been known of full-grown men and women that
have never dreamed at all; in exceptional cases of this kind, it has been observed that when a dream occurs in
advanced life it prognosticates either actual dissolution or a general break-up of the system.

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So much then for sensation and for the phenomena of sleeping and of awakening.

With regard to sex, some animals are divided into male and female, but others are not so divided but can only
be said in a comparative way to bring forth young and to be pregnant. In animals that live confined to one
spot there is no duality of sex; nor is there such, in fact, in any testaceans. In molluscs and in crustaceans we
find male and female: and, indeed, in all animals furnished with feet, biped or quadruped; in short, in all such
as by copulation engender either live young or egg or grub. In the several genera, with however certain
exceptions, there either absolutely is or absolutely is not a duality of sex. Thus, in quadrupeds the duality is
universal, while the absence of such duality is universal in testaceans, and of these creatures, as with plants,
some individuals are fruitful and some are not their lying still

But among insects and fishes, some cases are found wholly devoid of this duality of sex. For instance, the eel
is neither male nor female, and can engender nothing. In fact, those who assert that eels are at times found
with hair-like or worm-like progeny attached, make only random assertions from not having carefully
noticed the locality of such attachments. For no eel nor animal of this kind is ever viviparous unless
previously oviparous; and no eel was ever yet seen with an egg. And animals that are viviparous have their
young in the womb and closely attached, and not in the belly; for, if the embryo were kept in the belly, it
would be subjected to the process of digestion like ordinary food. When people rest duality of sex in the eel
on the assertion that the head of the male is bigger and longer, and the head of the female smaller and more
snubbed, they are taking diversity of species for diversity of sex.

There are certain fish that are nicknamed the epitragiae, or capon-fish, and, by the way, fish of this
description are found in fresh water, as the carp and the balagrus. This sort of fish never has either roe or milt;
but they are hard and fat all over, and are furnished with a small gut; and these fish are regarded as of
super-excellent quality.

Again, just as in testaceans and in plants there is what bears and engenders, but not what impregnates, so is it,
among fishes, with the psetta, the erythrinus, and the channe; for these fish are in all cases found furnished
with eggs.

As a general rule, in red-blooded animals furnished with feet and not oviparous, the male is larger and
longer-lived than the female (except with the mule, where the female is longer-lived and bigger than the
male); whereas in oviparous and vermiparous creatures, as in fishes and in insects, the female is larger than
the male; as, for instance, with the serpent, the phalangium or venom-spider, the gecko, and the frog. The
same difference in size of the sexes is found in fishes, as, for instance, in the smaller cartilaginous fishes, in
the greater part of the gregarious species, and in all that live in and about rocks. The fact that the female is
longer-lived than the male is inferred from the fact that female fishes are caught older than males.
Furthermore, in all animals the upper and front parts are better, stronger, and more thoroughly equipped in
the male than in the female, whereas in the female those parts are the better that may be termed hinder-parts
or underparts. And this statement is applicable to man and to all vivipara that have feet. Again, the female is
less muscular and less compactly jointed, and more thin and delicate in the hair-that is, where hair is found;
and, where there is no hair, less strongly furnished in some analogous substance. And the female is more
flaccid in texture of flesh, and more knock-kneed, and the shin-bones are thinner; and the feet are more
arched and hollow in such animals as are furnished with feet. And with regard to voice, the female in all
animals that are vocal has a thinner and sharper voice than the male; except, by the way, with kine, for the
lowing and bellowing of the cow has a deeper note than that of the bull. With regard to organs of defence and
offence, such as teeth, tusks, horns, spurs, and the like, these in some species the male possesses and the
female does not; as, for instance, the hind has no horns, and where the cock-bird has a spur the hen is entirely

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destitute of the organ; and in like manner the sow is devoid of tusks. In other species such organs are found in
both sexes, but are more perfectly developed in the male; as, for instance, the horn of the bull is more
powerful than the horn of the cow.

BookV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long animals devoid of feet, like serpents and muraenae, intertwine in coition, belly to belly. And, in fact,
serpents coil round one another so tightly as to present the appearance of a single serpent with a pair of heads.

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The same mode is followed by the saurians; that is to say, they coil round one another in the act of coition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The repeated observation of this phenomenon has led to the notion that the process was equivalent to coition,
but the fact is that a similar phenomenon is observable in quadrupeds. For at the rutting seasons both the

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males and the females take to running at their genitals, and the two sexes take to smelling each other at those
parts. (With partridges, by the way, if the female gets to leeward of the male, she becomes thereby
impregnated. And often when they happen to be in heat she is affected in this wise by the voice of the male,
or by his breathing down on her as he flies overhead; and, by the way, both the male and the female partridge
keep the mouth wide open and protrude the tongue in the process of coition.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insects copulate at the hinder end, and the smaller individuals mount the larger; and the smaller individual is I
I is the male. The female pushes from underneath her sexual organ into the body of the male above, this being
the reverse of the operation observed in other creatures; and this organ in the case of some insects appears to
be disproportionately large when compared to the size of the body, and that too in very minute creatures; in
some insects the disproportion is not so striking. This phenomenon may be witnessed if any one will pull
asunder flies that are copulating; and, by the way, these creatures are, under the circumstances, averse to

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separation; for the intercourse of the sexes in their case is of long duration, as may be observed with common
everyday insects, such as the fly and the cantharis. They all copulate in the manner above described, the fly,
the cantharis, the sphondyle, (the phalangium spider) any others of the kind that copulate at all. The
phalangia-that is to say, such of the species as spin webs-perform the operation in the following way: the
female takes hold of the suspended web at the middle and gives a pull, and the male gives a counter pull; this
operation they repeat until they are drawn in together and interlaced at the hinder ends; for, by the way, this
mode of copulation suits them in consequence of the rotundity of their stomachs.

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

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

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

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

God lulls for fourteen days the winds to sleep
In winter; and this temperate interlude
Men call the Holy Season, when the deep
Cradles the mother Halcyon and her brood.

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

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

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

Insects copulate and breed in winter also, that is when the weather is fine and south winds prevail; such, I
mean, as do not hibernate, as the fly and the ant. The greater part of wild animals bring forth once and once

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only in the year, except in the case of animals like the hare, where the female can become superfoetally
impregnated.

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

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

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

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

Of the grey mullets, the chelon begins to be in roe between the middle of November and the middle of
December; as also the sargue, and the smyxon or myxon, and the cephalus; and their period of gestation is

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thirty days. And, by the way, some of the grey mullet species are not produced from copulation, but grow
spontaneously from mud and sand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The boar is good for breeding purposes until he is three years of age; but after that age his issue deteriorates,
for after that age his vigour is on the decline. The boar is most capable after a good feed, and with the first
sow it mounts; if poorly fed or put to many females, the copulation is abbreviated, and the litter is
comparatively poor. The first litter of the sow is the fewest in number; at the second litter she is at her prime.
The animal, as it grows old, continues to breed, but the sexual desire abates. When they reach fifteen years,
they become unproductive, and are getting old. If a sow be highly fed, it is all the more eager for sexual
commerce, whether old or young; but, if it be over-fattened in pregnancy, it gives the less milk after
parturition. With regard to the age of the parents, the litter is the best when they are in their prime; but with
regard to the seasons of the year, the litter is the best that comes at the beginning of winter; and the summer
litter the poorest, consisting as it usually does of animals small and thin and flaccid. The boar, if it be well
fed, is sexually capable at all hours, night and day; but otherwise is peculiarly salacious early in the morning.

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As it grows old the sexual passion dies away, as we have already remarked. Very often a boar, when more or
less impotent from age or debility, finding itself unable to accomplish the sexual commerce with due speed,
and growing fatigued with the standing posture, will roll the sow over on the ground, and the pair will
conclude the operation side by side of one another. The sow is sure of conception if it drops its lugs in rutting
time; if the ears do not thus drop, it may have to rut a second time before impregnation takes place.

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

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

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

So much for the copulations of such animals as copulate.

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

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

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

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

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

The mussel also constructs a honeycomb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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the remaining stump and the place is soon as well covered as before.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The female sepia goes pregnant in the spring-time, and lays its eggs after fifteen days of gestation; after the
eggs are laid there comes in another fifteen days something like a bunch of grapes, and at the bursting of
these the young sepiae issue forth. But if, when the young ones are fully formed, you sever the outer covering

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a moment too soon, the young creatures eject excrement, and their colour changes from white to red in their
alarm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The so-called psyche or butterfly is generated from caterpillars which grow on green leaves, chiefly leaves of
the raphanus, which some call crambe or cabbage. At first it is less than a grain of millet; it then grows into a
small grub; and in three days it is a tiny caterpillar. After this it grows on and on, and becomes quiescent and

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changes its shape, and is now called a chrysalis. The outer shell is hard, and the chrysalis moves if you touch
it. It attaches itself by cobweb-like filaments, and is unfurnished with mouth or any other apparent organ.
After a little while the outer covering bursts asunder, and out flies the winged creature that we call the psyche
or butterfly. At first, when it is a caterpillar, it feeds and ejects excrement; but when it turns into the chrysalis
it neither feeds nor ejects excrement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The bees first work at the honeycomb, and then put the pupae in it: by the mouth, say those who hold the
theory of their bringing them from elsewhere. After putting in the pupae they put in the honey for

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subsistence, and this they do in the summer and autumn; and, by the way, the autumn honey is the better of
the two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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you squeeze it, is the same as the juice found in the spider when young; that is to say, it is thick and white.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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more than usually abundant when they change the water in which they bathe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the case of animals that are quadrupeds and red-blooded and oviparous, generation takes place in the
spring, but copulation does not take place in an uniform season. In some cases it takes place in the spring, in
others in summer time, and in others in the autumn, according as the subsequent season may be favourable
for the young.

The tortoise lays eggs with a hard shell and of two colours within, like birds' eggs, and after laying them
buries them in the ground and treads the ground hard over them; it then broods over the eggs on the surface of

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the ground, and hatches the eggs the next year. The hemys, or fresh-water tortoise, leaves the water and lays
its eggs. It digs a hole of a casklike shape, and deposits therein the eggs; after rather less than thirty days it
digs the eggs up again and hatches them with great rapidity, and leads its young at once off to the water. The
sea-turtle lays on the ground eggs just like the eggs of domesticated birds, buries the eggs in the ground, and
broods over them in the night-time. It lays a very great number of eggs, amounting at times to one hundred.

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

With regard to serpents or snakes, the viper is externally viviparous, having been previously oviparous
internally. The egg, as with the egg of fishes, is uniform in colour and soft-skinned. The young serpent grows
on the surface of the egg, and, like the young of fishes, has no shell-like envelopment. The young of the
viper is born inside a membrane that bursts from off the young creature in three days; and at times the young
viper eats its way out from the inside of the egg. The mother viper brings forth all its young in one day,
twenty in number, and one at a time. The other serpents are externally oviparous, and their eggs are strung on
to one another like a lady's necklace; after the dam has laid her eggs in the ground she broods over them, and
hatches the eggs in the following year.

Book VI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such as affirm that wind-eggs are the residua of eggs previously begotten from copulation are mistaken in
this assertion, for we have cases well authenticated where chickens of the common hen and goose have laid
wind-eggs without ever having been subjected to copulation. Wind-eggs are smaller, less palatable, and
more liquid than true eggs, and are produced in greater numbers. When they are put under the mother bird,
the liquid contents never coagulate, but both the yellow and the white remain as they were. Wind-eggs are
laid by a number of birds: as for instance by the common hen, the hen partridge, the hen pigeon, the peahen,
the goose, and the vulpanser. Eggs are hatched under brooding hens more rapidly in summer than in winter;
that is to say, hens hatch in eighteen days in summer, but occasionally in winter take as many as twenty-five.
And by the way for brooding purposes some birds make better mothers than others. If it thunders while a
hen-bird is brooding, the eggs get addled. Wind-eggs that are called by some cynosura and uria are produced
chiefly in summer. Wind-eggs are called by some zephyr-eggs, because at spring-time hen-birds are
observed to inhale the breezes; they do the same if they be stroked in a peculiar way by hand. Wind-eggs can

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turn into fertile eggs, and eggs due to previous copulation can change breed, if before the change of the
yellow to the white the hen that contains wind-eggs, or eggs begotten of copulation be trodden by another
cock-bird. Under these circumstances the wind-eggs turn into fertile eggs, and the previously impregnated
eggs follow the breed of the impregnator; but if the latter impregnation takes place during the change of the
yellow to the white, then no change in the egg takes place: the wind-egg does not become a true egg, and the
true egg does not take on the breed of the latter impregnator. If when the egg-substance is small copulation
be intermitted, the previously existing egg-substance exhibits no increase; but if the hen be again submitted
to the male the increase in size proceeds with rapidity.

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

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

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

Generation from the egg proceeds in an identical manner with all birds, but the full periods from conception
to birth differ, as has been said. With the common hen after three days and three nights there is the first
indication of the embryo; with larger birds the interval being longer, with smaller birds shorter. Meanwhile
the yolk comes into being, rising towards the sharp end, where the primal element of the egg is situated, and
where the egg gets hatched; and the heart appears, like a speck of blood, in the white of the egg. This point

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beats and moves as though endowed with life, and from it two vein-ducts with blood in them trend in a
convoluted course (as the egg substance goes on growing, towards each of the two circumjacent
integuments); and a membrane carrying bloody fibres now envelops the yolk, leading off from the
vein-ducts. A little afterwards the body is differentiated, at first very small and white. The head is clearly
distinguished, and in it the eyes, swollen out to a great extent. This condition of the eyes lat on for a good
while, as it is only by degrees that they diminish in size and collapse. At the outset the under portion of the
body appears insignificant in comparison with the upper portion. Of the two ducts that lead from the heart,
the one proceeds towards the circumjacent integument, and the other, like a navel-string, towards the yolk.
The life-element of the chick is in the white of the egg, and the nutriment comes through the navel-string out
of the yolk.

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

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

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

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palpitate as though the creature were respiring. So much as to generation from the egg in the case of birds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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get well again and will see by and by.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

HISTORY OF ANIMALS

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

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

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

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

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

So much for the conception and generation of birds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The seal is an amphibious animal: that is to say, it cannot take in water, but breathes and sleeps and brings
forth on dry land-only close to the shore-as being an animal furnished with feet; it spends, however, the
greater part of its time in the sea and derives its food from it, so that it must be classed in the category of
marine animals. It is viviparous by immediate conception and brings forth its young alive, and exhibits an
after-birth and all else just like a ewe. It bears one or two at a time, and three at the most. It has two teats,
and suckles its young like a quadruped. Like the human species it brings forth at all seasons of the year, but
especially at the time when the earliest kids are forthcoming. It conducts its young ones, when they are about
twelve days old, over and over again during the day down to the sea, accustoming them by slow degrees to
the water. It slips down steep places instead of walking, from the fact that it cannot steady itself by its feet. It
can contract and draw itself in, for it is fleshy and soft and its bones are gristly. Owing to the flabbiness of its
body it is difficult to kill a seal by a blow, unless you strike it on the temple. It looks like a cow. The female
in regard to its genital organs resembles the female of the ray; in all other respects it resembles the female of
the human species.

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

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

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

With such fish as pair, eggs are the result of copulation, but such fish have them also without copulation; and
this is shown in the case of some river-fish, for the minnow has eggs when quite small,-almost, one may say,
as soon as it is born. These fishes shed their eggs little by little, and, as is stated, the males swallow the
greater part of them, and some portion of them goes to waste in the water; but such of the eggs as the female

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deposits on the spawning beds are saved. If all the eggs were preserved, each species would be infinite in
number. The greater number of these eggs so deposited are not productive, but only those over which the
male sheds the milt or sperm; for when the female has laid her eggs, the male follows and sheds its sperm
over them, and from all the eggs so besprinkled young fishes proceed, while the rest are left to their fate.

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

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

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

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

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

When the Euxine is 'purged' a substance called phycus is carried into the Hellespont, and this substance is of
a pale yellow colour. Some writers aver that it is the flower of the phycus, from which rouge is made; it
comes at the beginning of summer. Oysters and the small fish of these localities feed on this substance, and
some of the inhabitants of these maritime districts say that the purple murex derives its peculiar colour from
it.

Marsh-fishes and river-fishes conceive at the age of five months as a general rule, and deposit their spawn
towards the close of the year without exception. And with these fishes, like as with the marine fishes, the
female does not void all her eggs at one time, nor the male his sperm; but they are at all times more or less
provided, the female with eggs, and the male with sperm. The-carp spawns as the seasons come round, five
or six times, and follows in spawning the rising of the greater constellations. The chalcis spawns three times,
and the other fishes once only in the year. They all spawn in pools left by the overflowing of rivers, and near
to reedy places in marshes; as for instance the phoxinus or minnow and the perch.

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The glanis or sheat-fish and the perch deposit their spawn in one continuous string, like the frog; so
continuous, in fact, is the convoluted spawn of the perch that, by reason of its smoothness, the fishermen in
the marshes can unwind it off the reeds like threads off a reel. The larger individuals of the sheat-fish spawn
in deep waters, some in water of a fathom's depth, the smaller in shallower water, generally close to the roots
of the willow or of some other tree, or close to reeds or to moss. At times these fishes intertwine with one
another, a big with a little one, and bring into juxtaposition the ducts-which some writers designate as
navels-at the point where they emit the generative products and discharge the egg in the case of the female
and the milt in the case of the male. Such eggs as are besprinkled with the milt grow, in a day or thereabouts,
whiter and larger, and in a little while afterwards the fish's eyes become visible for these organs in all fishes,
as for that matter in all other animals, are early conspicuous and seem disproportionately big. But such eggs
as the milt fails to touch remain, as with marine fishes, useless and infertile. From the fertile eggs, as the little
fish grow, a kind of sheath detaches itself; this is a membrane that envelops the egg and the young fish. When
the milt has mingled with the eggs, the resulting product becomes very sticky or viscous, and adheres to the
roots of trees or wherever it may have been laid. The male keeps on guard at the principal spawning-place,
and the female after spawning goes away.

In the case of the sheat-fish the growth from the egg is exceptionally slow, and, in consequence, the male has
to keep watch for forty or fifty days to prevent the-spawn being devoured by such little fishes as chance to
come by. Next in point of slowness is the generation of the carp. As with fishes in general, so even with
these, the spawn thus protected disappears and gets lost rapidly.

In the case of some of the smaller fishes when they are only three days old young fishes are generated. Eggs
touched by the male sperm take on increase both the same day and also later. The egg of the sheat-fish is as
big as a vetch-seed; the egg of the carp and of the carp-species as big as a millet-seed.

These fishes then spawn and generate in the way here described. The chalcis, however, spawns in deep water
in dense shoals of fish; and the so-called tilon spawns near to beaches in sheltered spots in shoals likewise.
The carp, the baleros, and fishes in general push eagerly into the shallows for the purpose of spawning, and
very often thirteen or fourteen males are seen following a single female. When the female deposits her spawn
and departs, the males follow on and shed the milt. The greater portion of the spawn gets wasted; because,
owing to the fact that the female moves about while spawning, the spawn scatters, or so much of it as is
caught in the stream and does not get entangled with some rubbish. For, with the exception of the sheatfish,
no fish keeps on guard; unless, by the way, it be the carp, which is said to remain on guard, if it so happen
that its spawn lies in a solid mass.

All male fishes are supplied with milt, excepting the eel: with the eel, the male is devoid of milt, and the
female of spawn. The mullet goes up from the sea to marshes and rivers; the eels, on the contrary, make their
way down from the marshes and rivers to the sea.

The great majority of fish, then, as has been stated, proceed from eggs. However, there are some fish that
proceed from mud and sand, even of those kinds that proceed also from pairing and the egg. This occurs in
ponds here and there, and especially in a pond in the neighbourhood of Cnidos. This pond, it is said, at one
time ran dry about the rising of the Dogstar, and the mud had all dried up; at the first fall of the rains there
was a show of water in the pond, and on the first appearance of the water shoals of tiny fish were found in the
pond. The fish in question was a kind of mullet, one which does not proceed from normal pairing, about the
size of a small sprat, and not one of these fishes was provided with either spawn or milt. There are found also
in Asia Minor, in rivers not communicating with the sea, little fishes like whitebait, differing from the small
fry found near Cnidos but found under similar circumstances. Some writers actually aver that mullet all grow

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spontaneously. In this assertion they are mistaken, for the female of the fish is found provided with spawn,
and the male with milt. However, there is a species of mullet that grows spontaneously out of mud and sand.

From the facts above enumerated it is quite proved that certain fishes come spontaneously into existence, not
being derived from eggs or from copulation. Such fish as are neither oviparous nor viviparous arise all from
one of two sources, from mud, or from sand and from decayed matter that rises thence as a scum; for
instance, the so-called froth of the small fry comes out of sandy ground. This fry is incapable of growth and
of propagating its kind; after living for a while it dies away and another creature takes its place, and so, with
short intervals excepted, it may be said to last the whole year through. At all events, it lasts from the autumn
rising of Arcturus up to the spring-time. As a proof that these fish occasionally come out of the ground we
have the fact that in cold weather they are not caught, and that they are caught in warm weather, obviously
coming up out of the ground to catch the heat; also, when the fishermen use dredges and the ground is
scraped up fairly often, the fishes appear in larger numbers and of superior quality. All other small fry are
inferior in quality owing to rapidity of growth. The fry are found in sheltered and marshy districts, when after
a spell of fine weather the ground is getting warmer, as, for instance, in the neighbourhood of Athens, at
Salamis and near the tomb of Themistocles and at Marathon; for in these districts the froth is found. It
appears, then, in such districts and during such weather, and occasionally appears after a heavy fall of rain in
the froth that is thrown up by the falling rain, from which circumstance the substance derives its specific
name. Foam is occasionally brought in on the surface of the sea in fair weather. (And in this, where it has
formed on the surface, the so-called froth collects, as grubs swarm in manure; for which-reason this fry is
often brought in from the open sea. The fish is at its best in quality and quantity in moist warm weather.)

The ordinary fry is the normal issue of parent fishes: the so-called gudgeon-fry of small insignificant
gudgeon-like fish that burrow under the ground. From the Phaleric fry comes the membras, from the
membras the trichis, from the trichis the trichias, and from one particular sort of fry, to wit from that found in
the harbour of Athens, comes what is called the encrasicholus, or anchovy. There is another fry, derived from
the maenis and the mullet.

The unfertile fry is watery and keeps only a short time, as has been stated, for at last only head and eyes are
left. However, the fishermen of late have hit upon a method of transporting it to a distance, as when salted it
keeps for a considerable time.

Eels are not the issue of pairing, neither are they oviparous; nor was an eel ever found supplied with either
milt or spawn, nor are they when cut open found to have within them passages for spawn or for eggs. In point
of fact, this entire species of blooded animals proceeds neither from pair nor from the egg.

There can be no doubt that the case is so. For in some standing pools, after the water has been drained off and
the mud has been dredged away, the eels appear again after a fall of rain. In time of drought they do not
appear even in stagnant ponds, for the simple reason that their existence and sustenance is derived from
rain-water.

There is no doubt, then, that they proceed neither from pairing nor from an egg. Some writers, however, are
of opinion that they generate their kind, because in some eels little worms are found, from which they
suppose that eels are derived. But this opinion is not founded on fact. Eels are derived from the so-called
'earth's guts' that grow spontaneously in mud and in humid ground; in fact, eels have at times been seen to
emerge out of such earthworms, and on other occasions have been rendered visible when the earthworms
were laid open by either scraping or cutting. Such earthworms are found both in the sea and in rivers,
especially where there is decayed matter: in the sea in places where sea-weed abounds, and in rivers and

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marshes near to the edge; for it is near to the water's edge that sun-heat has its chief power and produces
putrefaction. So much for the generation of the eel.

Fish do not all bring forth their young at the same season nor all in like manner, neither is the period of
gestation for all of the same duration.

Before pairing the males and females gather together in shoals; at the time for copulation and parturition they
pair off. With some fishes the time of gestation is not longer than thirty days, with others it is a lesser period;
but with all it extends over a number of days divisible by seven. The longest period of gestation is that of the
species which some call a marinus.

The sargue conceives during the month of Poseideon (or December), and carries its spawn for thirty days;
and the species of mullet named by some the chelon, and the myxon, go with spawn at the same period and
over the same length of time.

All fish suffer greatly during the period of gestation, and are in consequence very apt to be thrown up on
shore at this time. In some cases they are driven frantic with pain and throw themselves on land. At all events
they are throughout this time continually in motion until parturition is over (this being especially true of the
mullet), and after parturition they are in repose. With many fish the time for parturition terminates on the
appearance of grubs within the belly; for small living grubs get generated there and eat up the spawn.

With shoal fishes parturition takes place in the spring, and indeed, with most fishes, about the time of the
spring equinox; with others it is at different times, in summer with some, and with others about the autumn
equinox.

The first of shoal fishes to spawn is the atherine, and it spawns close to land; the last is the cephalus: and this
is inferred from the fact that the brood of the atherine appears first of all and the brood of the cephalus last.
The mullet also spawns early. The saupe spawns usually at the beginning of summer, but occasionally in the
autumn. The aulopias, which some call the anthias, spawns in the summer. Next in order of spawning comes
the chrysophrys or gilthead, the basse, the mormyrus, and in general such fish as are nicknamed 'runners'.
Latest in order of the shoal fish come the red mullet and the coracine; these spawn in autumn. The red mullet
spawns on mud, and consequently, as the mud continues cold for a long while, spawns late in the year. The
coracine carries its spawn for a long time; but, as it lives usually on rocky ground, it goes to a distance and
spawns in places abounding in seaweed, at a period later than the red mullet. The maenis spawns about the
winter solstice. Of the others, such as are pelagic spawn for the most part in summer; which fact is proved by
their not being caught by fishermen during this period.

Of ordinary fishes the most prolific is the sprat; of cartilaginous fishes, the fishing-frog. Specimens,
however, of the fishing-frog are rare from the facility with which the young are destroyed, as the female lays
her spawn all in a lump close in to shore. As a rule, cartilaginous fish are less prolific than other fish owing to
their being viviparous; and their young by reason of their size have a better chance of escaping destruction.

The so-called needle-fish (or pipe-fish) is late in spawning, and the greater portion of them are burst
asunder by the eggs before spawning; and the eggs are not so many in number as large in size. The young fish
cluster round the parent like so many young spiders, for the fish spawns on to herself; and, if any one touch
the young, they swim away. The atherine spawns by rubbing its belly against the sand.

Tunny fish also burst asunder by reason of their fat. They live for two years; and the fishermen infer this age
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from the circumstance that once when there was a failure of the young tunny fish for a year there was a
failure of the full-grown tunny the next summer. They are of opinion that the tunny is a fish a year older than
the pelamyd. The tunny and the mackerel pair about the close of the month of Elaphebolion, and spawn about
the commencement of the month of Hecatombaeon; they deposit their spawn in a sort of bag. The growth of
the young tunny is rapid. After the females have spawned in the Euxine, there comes from the egg what some
call scordylae, but what the Byzantines nickname the 'auxids' or 'growers', from their growing to a
considerable size in a few days; these fish go out of the Pontus in autumn along with the young tunnies, and
enter Pontus in the spring as pelamyds. Fishes as a rule take on growth with rapidity, but this is peculiarly the
case with all species of fish found in the Pontus; the growth, for instance, of the amia-tunny is quite visible
from day to day.

To resume, we must bear in mind that the same fish in the same localities have not the same season for
pairing, for conception, for parturition, or for favouring weather. The coracine, for instance, in some places
spawns about wheat-harvest. The statements here given pretend only to give the results of general
observation.

The conger also spawns, but the fact is not equally obvious in all localities, nor is the spawn plainly visible
owing to the fat of the fish; for the spawn is lanky in shape as it is with serpents. However, if it be put on the
fire it shows its nature; for the fat evaporates and melts, while the eggs dance about and explode with a crack.
Further, if you touch the substances and rub them with your fingers, the fat feels smooth and the egg rough.
Some congers are provided with fat but not with any spawn, others are unprovided with fat but have
egg-spawn as here described.

We have, then, treated pretty fully of the animals that fly in the air or swim in the water, and of such of those
that walk on dry land as are oviparous, to wit of their pairing, conception, and the like phenomena; it now
remains to treat of the same phenomena in connexion with viviparous land animals and with man.

The statements made in regard to the pairing of the sexes apply partly to the particular kinds of animal and
partly to all in general. It is common to all animals to be most excited by the desire of one sex for the other
and by the pleasure derived from copulation. The female is most cross-tempered just after parturition, the
male during the time of pairing; for instance, stallions at this period bite one another, throw their riders, and
chase them. Wild boars, though usually enfeebled at this time as the result of copulation, are now unusually
fierce, and fight with one another in an extraordinary way, clothing themselves with defensive armour, or in
other words deliberately thickening their hide by rubbing against trees or by coating themselves repeatedly all
over with mud and then drying themselves in the sun. They drive one another away from the swine pastures,
and fight with such fury that very often both combatants succumb. The case is similar with bulls, rams, and
he-goats; for, though at ordinary times they herd together, at breeding time they hold aloof from and quarrel
with one another. The male camel also is cross-tempered at pairing time if either a man or a camel comes
near him; as for a horse, a camel is ready to fight him at any time. It is the same with wild animals. The bear,
the wolf, and the lion are all at this time ferocious towards such as come in their way, but the males of these
animals are less given to fight with one another from the fact that they are at no time gregarious. The
she-bear is fierce after cubbing, and the bitch after pupping.

Male elephants get savage about pairing time, and for this reason it is stated that men who have charge of
elephants in India never allow the males to have intercourse with the females; on the ground that the males go
wild at this time and turn topsy-turvy the dwellings of their keepers, lightly constructed as they are, and
commit all kinds of havoc. They also state that abundancy of food has a tendency to tame the males. They
further introduce other elephants amongst the wild ones, and punish and break them in by setting on the

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new-comers to chastise the others.

Animals that pair frequently and not at a single specific season, as for instance animals domesticated by man,
such as swine and dogs, are found to indulge in such freaks to a lesser degree owing to the frequency of their
sexual intercourse.

Of female animals the mare is the most sexually wanton, and next in order comes the cow. In fact, the mare is
said to go a-horsing; and the term derived from the habits of this one animal serves as a term of abuse
applicable to such females of the human species as are unbridled in the way of sexual appetite. This is the
common phenomenon as observed in the sow when she is said to go a-boaring. The mare is said also about
this time to get wind-impregnated if not impregnated by the stallion, and for this reason in Crete they never
remove the stallion from the mares; for when the mare gets into this condition she runs away from all other
horses. The mares under these circumstances fly invariably either northwards or southwards, and never
towards either east or west. When this complaint is on them they allow no one to approach, until either they
are exhausted with fatigue or have reached the sea. Under either of these circumstances they discharge a
certain substance 'hippomanes', the title given to a growth on a new-born foal; this resembles the sow-virus,
and is in great request amongst women who deal in drugs and potions. About horsing time the mares huddle
closer together, are continually switching their tails, their neigh is abnormal in sound, and from the sexual
organ there flows a liquid resembling genital sperm, but much thinner than the sperm of the male. It is this
substance that some call hippomanes, instead of the growth found on the foal; they say it is extremely
difficult to get as it oozes out only in small drops at a time. Mares also, when in heat, discharge urine
frequently, and frisk with one another. Such are the phenomena connected with the horse.

Cows go a-bulling; and so completely are they under the influence of the sexual excitement that the
herdsmen have no control over them and cannot catch hold of them in the fields. Mares and kine alike, when
in heat, indicate the fact by the upraising of their genital organs, and by continually voiding urine. Further,
kine mount the bulls, follow them about; and keep standing beside them. The younger females both with
horses and oxen are the first to get in heat; and their sexual appetites are all the keener if the weather warm
and their bodily condition be healthy. Mares, when dipt of their coat, have the sexual feeling checked, and
assume a downcast drooping appearance. The stallion recognizes by the scent the mares that form his
company, even though they have been together only a few days before breeding time: if they get mixed up
with other mares, the stallion bites and drives away the interlopers. He feeds apart, accompanied by his own
troop of mares. Each stallion has assigned to him about thirty mares or even somewhat more; when a strange
stallion approaches, he huddles his mares into a close ring, runs round them, then advances to the encounter
of the newcomer; if one of the mares make a movement, he bites her and drives her back. The bull in
breeding time begins to graze with the cows, and fights with other bulls (having hitherto grazed with them),
which is termed by graziers 'herd-spurning'. Often in Epirus a bull disappears for three months together. In a
general way one may state that of male animals either none or few herd with their respective females before
breeding time; but they keep separate after reaching maturity, and the two sexes feed apart. Sows, when they
are moved by sexual desire, or are, as it is called, a-boaring, will attack even human beings.

With bitches the same sexual condition is termed 'getting into heat'. The sexual organ rises at this time, and
there is a moisture about the parts. Mares drip with a white liquid at this season.

Female animals are subject to menstrual discharges, but never in such-abundance as is the female of the
human species. With ewes and she-goats there are signs of menstruation in breeding time, just before the for
submitting to the male; after copulation also the signs are manifest, and then cease for an interval until the
period of parturition arrives; the process then supervenes, and it is by this supervention that the shepherd
knows that such and such an ewe is about to bring forth. After parturition comes copious menstruation, not at
first much tinged with blood, but deeply dyed with it by and by. With the cow, the she ass, and the mare, the
discharge is more copious actually, owing to their greater bulk, but proportionally to the greater bulk it is far

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less copious. The cow, for instance, when in heat, exhibits a small discharge to the extent of a quarter of a
pint of liquid or a little less; and the time when this discharge takes place is the best time for her to be covered
by the bull. Of all quadrupeds the mare is the most easily delivered of its young, exhibits the least amount of
discharge after parturition, and emits the least amount of blood; that is to say, of all animals in proportion to
size. With kine and mares menstruation usually manifests itself at intervals of two, four, and six months; but,
unless one be constantly attending to and thoroughly acquainted with such animals, it is difficult to verify the
circumstance, and the result is that many people are under the belief that the process never takes place with
these animals at all.

With mules menstruation never takes place, but the urine of the female is thicker than the urine of the male.
As a general rule the discharge from the bladder in the case of quadrupeds is thicker than it is in the human
species, and this discharge with ewes and she-goats is thicker than with rams and he-goats; but the urine of
the jackass is thicker than the urine of the she-ass, and the urine of the bull is more pungent than the urine of
the cow. After parturition the urine of all quadrupeds becomes thicker, especially with such animals as
exhibit comparatively slight discharges. At breeding time the milk become purulent, but after parturition it
becomes wholesome. During pregnancy ewes and she-goats get fatter and eat more; as is also the case with
cows, and, indeed, with the females of all quadrupeds.

In general the sexual appetites of animals are keenest in spring-time; the time of pairing, however, is not the
same for all, but is adapted so as to ensure the rearing of the young at a convenient season.

Domesticated swine carry their young for four months, and bring forth a litter of twenty at the utmost; and, by
the way, if the litter be exceedingly numerous they cannot rear all the young. As the sow grows old she
continues to bear, but grows indifferent to the boar; she conceives after a single copulation, but they have to
put the boar to her repeatedly owing to her dropping after intercourse what is called the sow-virus. This
incident befalls all sows, but some of them discharge the genital sperm as well. During conception any one of
the litter that gets injured or dwarfed is called an afterpig or scut: such injury may occur at any part of the
womb. After littering the mother offers the foremost teat to the first-born. When the sow is in heat, she must
not at once be put to the boar, but only after she lets her lugs drop, for otherwise she is apt to get into heat
again; if she be put to the boar when in full condition of heat, one copulation, as has been said, is sufficient. It
is as well to supply the boar at the period of copulation with barley, and the sow at the time of parturition
with boiled barley. Some swine give fine litters only at the beginning, with others the litters improve as the
mothers grow in age and size. It is said that a sow, if she have one of her eyes knocked out, is almost sure to
die soon afterwards. Swine for the most part live for fifteen years, but some fall little short of the twenty.

Ewes conceive after three or four copulations with the ram. If rain falls after intercourse, the ram impregnates
the ewe again; and it is the same with the she-goat. The ewe bears usually two lambs, sometimes three or
four. Both ewe and she-goat carry their young for five months; consequently wherever a district is sunny and
the animals are used to comfort and well fed, they bear twice in the year. The goat lives for eight years and
the sheep for ten, but in most cases not so long; the bell-wether, however, lives to fifteen years. In every
flock they train one of the rams for bell-wether. When he is called on by name by the shepherd, he takes the
lead of the flock: and to this duty the creature is trained from its earliest years. Sheep in Ethiopia live for
twelve or thirteen years, goats for ten or eleven. In the case of the sheep and the goat the two sexes have
intercourse all their lives long.

Twins with sheep and goats may be due to richness of pasturage, or to the fact that either the ram or the
he-goat is a twin-begetter or that the ewe or the she-goat is a twin-bearer. Of these animals some give birth
to males and others to females; and the difference in this respect depends on the waters they drink and also on

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the sires. And if they submit to the male when north winds are blowing, they are apt to bear males; if when
south winds are blowing, females. Such as bear females may get to bear males, due regard being paid to their
looking northwards when put to the male. Ewes accustomed to be put to the ram early will refuse him if he
attempt to mount them late. Lambs are born white and black according as white or black veins are under the
ram's tongue; the lambs are white if the veins are white, and black if the veins are black, and white and black
if the veins are white and black; and red if the veins are red. The females that drink salted waters are the first
to take the male; the water should be salted before and after parturition, and again in the springtime. With
goats the shepherds appoint no bell-wether, as the animal is not capable of repose but frisky and apt to
ramble. If at the appointed season the elders of the flock are eager for intercourse, the shepherds say that it
bodes well for the flock; if the younger ones, that the flock is going to be bad.

Of dogs there are several breeds. Of these the Laconian hound of either sex is fit for breeding purposes when
eight months old: at about the same age some dogs lift the leg when voiding urine. The bitch conceives with
one lining; this is clearly seen in the case where a dog contrives to line a bitch by stealth, as they impregnate
after mounting only once. The Laconian bitch carries her young the sixth part of a year or sixty days: or more
by one, two, or three, or less by one; the pups are blind for twelve days after birth. After pupping, the bitch
gets in heat again in six months, but not before. Some bitches carry their young for the fifth part of the year or
for seventy-two days; and their pups are blind for fourteen days. Other bitches carry their young for a quarter
of a year or for three whole months; and the whelps of these are blind for seventeen days. The bitch appears
go in heat for the same length of time. Menstruation continues for seven days, and a swelling of the genital
organ occurs simultaneously; it is not during this period that the bitch is disposed to submit to the dog, but in
the seven days that follow. The bitch as a rule goes in heat for fourteen days, but occasionally for sixteen. The
birth-discharge occurs simultaneously with the delivery of the whelps, and the substance of it is thick and
mucous. (The falling-off in bulk on the part of the mother is not so great as might have been inferred from
the size of her frame.) The bitch is usually supplied with milk five days before parturition; some seven days
previously, some four; and the milk is serviceable immediately after birth. The Laconian bitch is supplied
with milk thirty days after lining. The milk at first is thickish, but gets thinner by degrees; with the bitch the
milk is thicker than with the female of any other animal excepting the sow and the hare. When the bitch
arrives at full growth an indication is given of her capacity for the male; that is to say, just as occurs in the
female of the human species, a swelling takes place in the teats of the breasts, and the breasts take on gristle.
This incident, however, it is difficult for any but an expert to detect, as the part that gives the indication is
inconsiderable. The preceding statements relate to the female, and not one of them to the male. The male as a
rule lifts his leg to void urine when six months old; some at a later period, when eight months old, some
before they reach six months. In a general way one may put it that they do so when they are out of
puppyhood. The bitch squats down when she voids urine; it is a rare exception that she lifts the leg to do so.
The bitch bears twelve pups at the most, but usually five or six; occasionally a bitch will bear one only. The
bitch of the Laconian breed generally bears eight. The two sexes have intercourse with each other at all
periods of life. A very remarkable phenomenon is observed in the case of the Laconian hound: in other
words, he is found to be more vigorous in commerce with the female after being hard-worked than when
allowed to live idle.

The dog of the Laconian breed lives ten years, and the bitch twelve. The bitch of other breeds usually lives
for fourteen or fifteen years, but some live to twenty; and for this reason certain critics consider that Homer
did well in representing the dog of Ulysses as having died in his twentieth year. With the Laconian hound,
owing to the hardships to which the male is put, he is less long-lived than the female; with other breeds the
distinction as to longevity is not very apparent, though as a general rule the male is the longer-lived.

The dog sheds no teeth except the so-called 'canines'; these a dog of either sex sheds when four months old.
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As they shed these only, many people are in doubt as to the fact, and some people, owing to their shedding
but two and its being hard to hit upon the time when they do so, fancy that the animal sheds no teeth at all;
others, after observing the shedding of two, come to the conclusion that the creature sheds the rest in due
turn. Men discern the age of a dog by inspection of its teeth; with young dogs the teeth are white and sharp
pointed, with old dogs black and blunted.

The bull impregnates the cow at a single mount, and mounts with such vigour as to weigh down the cow; if
his effort be unsuccessful, the cow must be allowed an interval of twenty days before being again submitted.
Bulls of mature age decline to mount the same cow several times on one day, except, by the way, at
considerable intervals. Young bulls by reason of their vigour are enabled to mount the same cow several
times in one day, and a good many cows besides. The bull is the least salacious of male animals.... The victor
among the bulls is the one that mounts the females; when he gets exhausted by his amorous efforts, his beaten
antagonist sets on him and very often gets the better of the conflict. The bull and the cow are about a year old
when it is possible for them to have commerce with chance of offspring: as a rule, however, they are about
twenty months old, but it is universally allowed that they are capable in this respect at the age of two years.
The cow goes with calf for nine months, and she calves in the tenth month; some maintain that they go in calf
for ten months, to the very day. A calf delivered before the times here specified is an abortion and never lives,
however little premature its birth may have been, as its hooves are weak and imperfect. The cow as a rule
bears but one calf, very seldom two; she submits to the bull and bears as long as she lives.

Cows live for about fifteen years, and the bulls too, if they have been castrated; but some live for twenty
years or even more, if their bodily constitutions be sound. The herdsmen tame the castrated bulls, and give
them an office in the herd analogous to the office of the bell-wether in a flock; and these bulls live to an
exceptionally advanced age, owing to their exemption from hardship and to their browsing on pasture of good
quality. The bull is in fullest vigour when five years old, which leads the critics to commend Homer for
applying to the bull the epithets of 'five-year-old', or 'of nine seasons', which epithets are alike in meaning.
The ox sheds his teeth at the age of two years, not all together but just as the horse sheds his. When the
animal suffers from podagra it does not shed the hoof, but is subject to a painful swelling in the feet. The
milk of the cow is serviceable after parturition, and before parturition there is no milk at all. The milk that
first presents itself becomes as hard as stone when it clots; this result ensues unless it be previously diluted
with water. Oxen younger than a year old do not copulate unless under circumstances of an unnatural and
portentous kind: instances have been recorded of copulation in both sexes at the age of four months. Kine in
general begin to submit to the male about the month of Thargelion or of Scirophorion; some, however, are
capable of conception right on to the autumn. When kine in large numbers receive the bull and conceive, it is
looked upon as prognostic of rain and stormy weather. Kine herd together like mares, but in lesser degree.

In the case of horses, the stallion and the mare are first fitted for breeding purposes when two years old.
Instances, however, of such early maturity are rare, and their young are exceptionally small and weak; the
ordinary age for sexual maturity is three years, and from that age to twenty the two sexes go on improving in
the quality of their offspring. The mare carries her foal for eleven months, and casts it in the twelfth. It is not
a fixed number of days that the stallion takes to impregnate the mare; it may be one, two, three, or more. An
ass in covering will impregnate more expeditiously than a stallion. The act of intercourse with horses is not
laborious as it is with oxen. In both sexes the horse is the most salacious of animals next after the human
species. The breeding faculties of the younger horses may be stimulated beyond their years if they be
supplied with good feeding in abundance. The mare as a rule bears only one foal; occasionally she has two,
but never more. A mare has been known to cast two mules; but such a circumstance was regarded as

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unnatural and portentous.

The horse then is first fitted for breeding purposes at the age of two and a half years, but achieves full sexual
maturity when it has ceased to shed teeth, except it be naturally infertile; it must be added, however, that
some horses have been known to impregnate the mare while the teeth were in process of shedding.

The horse has forty teeth. It sheds its first set of four, two from the upper jaw and two from the lower, when
two and a half years old. After a year's interval, it sheds another set of four in like manner, and another set of
four after yet another year's interval; after arriving at the age of four years and six months it sheds no more.
An instance has occurred where a horse shed all his teeth at once, and another instance of a horse shedding all
his teeth with his last set of four; but such instances are very rare. It consequently happens that a horse when
four and a half years old is in excellent condition for breeding purposes.

The older horses, whether of the male or female, are the more generatively productive. Horses will cover
mares from which they have been foaled and mares which they have begotten; and, indeed, a troop of horses
is only considered perfect when such promiscuity of intercourse occurs. Scythians use pregnant mares for
riding when the embryo has turned rather soon in the womb, and they assert that thereby the mothers have all
the easier delivery. Quadrupeds as a rule lie down for parturition, and in consequence the young of them all
come out of the womb sideways. The mare, however, when the time for parturition arrives, stands erect and
in that posture casts its foal.

The horse in general lives for eighteen or twenty years; some horses live for twenty-five or even thirty, and if
a horse be treated with extreme care, it may last on to the age of fifty years; a horse, however, when it reaches
thirty years is regarded as exceptionally old. The mare lives usually for twenty-five years, though instances
have occurred of their attaining the age of forty. The male is less long-lived than the female by reason of the
sexual service he is called on to render; and horses that are reared in a private stable live longer than such as
are reared in troops. The mare attains her full length and height at five years old, the stallion at six; in another
six years the animal reaches its full bulk, and goes on improving until it is twenty years old. The female, then,
reaches maturity more rapidly than the male, but in the womb the case is reversed, just as is observed in
regard to the sexes of the human species; and the same phenomenon is observed in the case of all animals that
bear several young.

The mare is said to suckle a mule-foal for six months, but not to allow its approach for any longer on account
of the pain it is put to by the hard tugging of the young; an ordinary foal it allows to suck for a longer period.

Horse and mule are at their best after the shedding of the teeth. After they have shed them all, it is not easy to
distinguish their age; hence they are said to carry their mark before the shedding, but not after. However,
even after the shedding their age is pretty well recognized by the aid of the canines; for in the case of horses
much ridden these teeth are worn away by attrition caused by the insertion of the bit; in the case of horses not
ridden the teeth are large and detached, and in young horses they are sharp and small.

The male of the horse will breed at all seasons and during its whole life; the mare can take the horse all its life
long, but is not thus ready to pair at all seasons unless it be held in check by a halter or some other
compulsion be brought to bear. There is no fixed time at which intercourse of the two sexes cannot take
place; and accordingly intercourse may chance to take place at a time that may render difficult the rearing of
the future progeny. In a stable in Opus there was a stallion that used to serve mares when forty years old: his
fore legs had to be lifted up for the operation.

Mares first take the horse in the spring-time. After a mare has foaled she does not get impregnated at once
again, but only after a considerable interval; in fact, the foals will be all the better if the interval extend over
four or five years. It is, at all events, absolutely necessary to allow an interval of one year, and for that period

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to let her lie fallow. A mare, then, breeds at intervals; a she-ass breeds on and on without intermission. Of
mares some are absolutely sterile, others are capable of conception but incapable of bringing the foal to full
term; it is said to be an indication of this condition in a mare, that her foal if dissected is found to have other
kidney-shaped substances round about its kidneys, presenting the appearance of having four kidneys.

After parturition the mare at once swallows the after-birth, and bites off the growth, called the 'hippomanes',
that is found on the forehead of the foal. This growth is somewhat smaller than a dried fig; and in shape is
broad and round, and in colour black. If any bystander gets possession of it before the mare, and the mare
gets a smell of it, she goes wild and frantic at the smell. And it is for this reason that venders of drugs and
simples hold the substance in high request and include it among their stores.

If an ass cover a mare after the mare has been covered by a horse, the ass will destroy the previously formed
embryo.

(Horse-trainers do not appoint a horse as leader to a troop, as herdsmen appoint a bull as leader to a herd, and
for this reason that the horse is not steady but quick-tempered and skittish.)

The ass of both sexes is capable of breeding, and sheds its first teeth at the age of two and a half years; it
sheds its second teeth within six months, its third within another six months, and the fourth after the like
interval. These fourth teeth are termed the gnomons or age-indicators.

A she-ass has been known to conceive when a year old, and the foal to be reared. After intercourse with the
male it will discharge the genital sperm unless it be hindered, and for this reason it is usually beaten after
such intercourse and chased about. It casts its young in the twelfth month. It usually bears but one foal, and
that is its natural number, occasionally however it bears twins. The ass if it cover a mare destroys, as has been
said, the embryo previously begotten by the horse; but, after the mare has been covered by the ass, the horse
supervening will not spoil the embryo. The she-ass has milk in the tenth month of pregnancy. Seven days
after casting a foal the she-ass submits to the male, and is almost sure to conceive if put to the male on this
particular day; the same result, however, is quite possible later on. The she-ass will refuse to cast her foal
with any one looking on or in the daylight and just before foaling she has to be led away into a dark place. If
the she-ass has had young before the shedding of the index-teeth, she will bear all her life through; but if
not, then she will neither conceive nor bear for the rest of her days. The ass lives for more than thirty years,
and the she-ass lives longer than the male.

When there is a cross between a horse and a she- ass or a jackass and a mare, there is much greater chance of
a miscarriage than where the commerce is normal. The period for gestation in the case of a cross depends on
the male, and is just what it would have been if the male had had commerce with a female of his own kind. In
regard to size, looks, and vigour, the foal is more apt to resemble the mother than the sire. If such hybrid
connexions be continued without intermittence, the female will soon go sterile; and for this reason trainers
always allow of intervals between breeding times. A mare will not take the ass, nor a she ass the horse, unless
the ass or she-ass shall have been suckled by a mare; and for this reason trainers put foals of the she-ass
under mares, which foals are technically spoken of as 'mare-suckled'. These asses, thus reared, mount the
mares in the open pastures, mastering them by force as the stallions do.

A mule is fitted for commerce with the female after the first shedding of its teeth, and at the age of seven will
impregnate effectually; and where connexion has taken place with a mare, a 'ninny' has been known to be

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produced. After the seventh year it has no further intercourse with the female. A female mule has been known
to be impregnated, but without the impregnation being followed up by parturition. In Syrophoenicia
she-mules submit to the mule and bear young; but the breed, though it resembles the ordinary one, is
different and specific. The hinny or stunted mule is foaled by a mare when she has gone sick during gestation,
and corresponds to the dwarf in the human species and to the after-pig or scut in swine; and as is the case
with dwarfs, the sexual organ of the hinny is abnormally large.

The mule lives for a number of years. There are on record cases of mules living to the age of eighty, as did
one in Athens at the time of the building of the temple; this mule on account of its age was let go free, but
continued to assist in dragging burdens, and would go side by side with the other draught-beasts and
stimulate them to their work; and in consequence a public decree was passed forbidding any baker driving the
creature away from his bread-tray. The she-mule grows old more slowly than the mule. Some assert that the
she-mule menstruates by the act of voiding her urine, and that the mule owes the prematurity of his decay to
his habit of smelling at the urine. So much for the modes of generation in connexion with these animals.

Breeders and trainers can distinguish between young and old quadrupeds. If, when drawn back from the jaw,
the skin at once goes back to its place, the animal is young; if it remains long wrinkled up, the animal is old.

The camel carries its young for ten months, and bears but one at a time and never more; the young camel is
removed from the mother when a year old. The animal lives for a long period, more than fifty years. It bears
in spring-time, and gives milk until the time of the next conception. Its flesh and milk are exceptionally
palatable. The milk is drunk mixed with water in the proportion of either two to one or three to one.

The elephant of either sex is fitted for breeding before reaching the age of twenty. The female carries her
young, according to some accounts, for two and a half years; according to others, for three years; and the
discrepancy in the assigned periods is due to the fact that there are never human eyewitnesses to the
commerce between the sexes. The female settles down on its rear to cast its young, and obviously suffers
greatly during the process. The young one, immediately after birth, sucks the mother, not with its trunk but
with the mouth; and can walk about and see distinctly the moment it is born.

The wild sow submits to the boar at the beginning of winter, and in the spring-time retreats for parturition to
a lair in some district inaccessible to intrusion, hemmed in with sheer cliffs and chasms and overshadowed by
trees. The boar usually remains by the sow for thirty days. The number of the litter and the period gestation is
the same as in the case of the domesticated congener. The sound of the grunt also is similar; only that the sow
grunts continually, and the boar but seldom. Of the wild boars such as are castrated grow to the largest size
and become fiercest: to which circumstance Homer alludes when he says:-

'He reared against him a wild castrated boar: it was not like a food-devouring brute, but like a forest-clad
promontory.'

Wild boars become castrated owing to an itch befalling them in early life in the region of the testicles, and the
castration is superinduced by their rubbing themselves against the trunks of trees.

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The hind, as has been stated, submits to the stag as a rule only under compulsion, as she is unable to endure
the male often owing to the rigidity of the penis. However, they do occasionally submit to the stag as the ewe
submits ram; and when they are in heat the hinds avoid one another. The stag is not constant to one particular
hind, but after a while quits one and mates with others. The breeding time is after the rising of Arcturus,
during the months of Boedromion and Maimacterion. The period of gestation lasts for eight months.
Conception comes on a few days after intercourse; and a number of hinds can be impregnated by a single
male. The hind, as a rule, bears but one fawn, although instances have been known of her casting two. Out of
dread of wild beasts she casts her young by the side of the high-road. The young fawn grows with rapidity.
Menstruation occurs at no other time with the hind; it takes place only after parturition, and the substance is
phlegm-like.

The hind leads the fawn to her lair; this is her place of refuge, a cave with a single inlet, inside which she
shelters herself against attack.

Fabulous stories are told concerning the longevity of the animal, but the stories have never been verified, and
the brevity of the period of gestation and the rapidity of growth in the fawn would not lead one to attribute
extreme longevity to this creature.

In the mountain called Elaphoeis or Deer Mountain, which is in Arginussa in Asia Minor-the place, by the
way, where Alcibiades was assassinated-all the hinds have the ear split, so that, if they stray to a distance,
they can be recognized by this mark; and the embryo actually has the mark while yet in the womb of the
mother.

The hind has four teats like the cow. After the hinds have become pregnant, the males all segregate one by
one, and in consequence of the violence of their sexual passions they keep each one to himself, dig a hole in
the ground, and bellow from time to time; in all these particulars they resemble the goat, and their foreheads
from getting wetted become black, as is also the case with the goat. In this way they pass the time until the
rain falls, after which time they turn to pasture. The animal acts in this way owing to its sexual wantonness
and also to its obesity; for in summer-time it becomes so exceptionally fat as to be unable to run: in fact at
this period they can be overtaken by the hunters that pursue them on foot in the second or third run; and, by
the way, in consequence of the heat of the weather and their getting out of breath they always make for water
in their runs. In the rutting season, the flesh of the deer is unsavoury and rank, like the flesh of the he-goat. In
winter-time the deer becomes thin and weak, but towards the approach of the spring he is at his best for
running. When on the run the deer keeps pausing from time to time, and waits until his pursuer draws upon
him, whereupon he starts off again. This habit appears due to some internal pain: at all events, the gut is so
slender and weak that, if you strike the animal ever so softly, it is apt to break asunder, though the hide of the
animal remains sound and uninjured.

Bears, as has been previously stated, do not copulate with the male mounting the back of the female, but with
the female lying down under the male. The she-bear goes with young for thirty days. She brings forth
sometimes one cub, sometimes two cubs, and at most five. Of all animals the newly born cub of the she bear
is the smallest in proportion to the size of the mother; that is to say, it is larger than a mouse but smaller than
a weasel. It is also smooth and blind, and its legs and most of its organs are as yet inarticulate. Pairing takes
Place in the month of Elaphebolion, and parturition about the time for retiring into winter quarters; about this
time the bear and the she-bear are at the fattest. After the she-bear has reared her young, she comes out of
her winter lair in the third month, when it is already spring. The female porcupine, by the way, hibernates and

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goes with young the same number of days as the she-bear, and in all respects as to parturition resembles this
animal. When a she-bear is with young, it is a very hard task to catch her.

It has already been stated that the lion and lioness copulate rearwards, and that these animals are opisthuretic.
They do not copulate nor bring forth at all seasons indiscriminately, but once in the year only. The lioness
brings forth in the spring, generally two cubs at a time, and six at the very most; but sometimes only one. The
story about the lioness discharging her womb in the act of parturition is a pure fable, and was merely invented
to account for the scarcity of the animal; for the animal is, as is well known, a rare animal, and is not found in
many countries. In fact, in the whole of Europe it is only found in the strip between the rivers Achelous and
Nessus. The cubs of the lioness when newly born are exceedingly small, and can scarcely walk when two
months old. The Syrian lion bears cubs five times: five cubs at the first litter, then four, then three, then two,
and lastly one; after this the lioness ceases to bear for the rest of her days. The lioness has no mane, but this
appendage is peculiar to the lion. The lion sheds only the four so-called canines, two in the upper jaw and
two in the lower; and it sheds them when it is six months old.

The hyena in colour resembles the wolf, but is more shaggy, and is furnished with a mane running all along
the spine. What is recounted concerning its genital organs, to the effect that every hyena is furnished with the
organ both of the male and the female, is untrue. The fact is that the sexual organ of the male hyena
resembles the same organ in the wolf and in the dog; the part resembling the female genital organ lies
underneath the tail, and does to some extent resemble the female organ, but it is unprovided with duct or
passage, and the passage for the residuum comes underneath it. The female hyena has the part that resembles
the organ of the male, and, as in the case of the male, has it underneath her tail, unprovided with duct or
passage; and after it the passage for the residuum, and underneath this the true female genital organ. The
female hyena has a womb, like all other female animals of the same kind. It is an exceedingly rare
circumstance to meet with a female hyena. At least a hunter said that out of eleven hyenas he had caught,
only one was a female.

Hares copulate in a rearward posture, as has been stated, for the animal is opisthuretic. They breed and bear at
all seasons, superfoetate during pregnancy, and bear young every month. They do not give birth to their
young ones all together at one time, but bring them forth at intervals over as many days as the circumstances
of each case may require. The female is supplied with milk before parturition; and after bearing submits
immediately to the male, and is capable of conception while suckling her young. The milk in consistency
resembles sow's milk. The young are born blind, as is the case with the greater part Of the fissipeds or toed
animals.

The fox mounts the vixen in copulation, and the vixen bears young like the she-bear; in fact, her young ones
are even more inarticulately formed. Before parturition she retires to sequestered places, so that it is a great
rarity for a vixen to be caught while pregnant. After parturition she warms her young and gets them into
shape by licking them. She bears four at most at a birth.

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The wolf resembles the dog in regard to the time of conception and parturition, the number of the litter, and
the blindness of the newborn young. The sexes couple at one special period, and the female brings forth at the
beginning of the summer. There is an account given of the parturition of the she-wolf that borders on the
fabulous, to the effect that she confines her lying-in to within twelve particular days of the year. And they
give the reason for this in the form of a myth, viz. that when they transported Leto in so many days from the
land of the Hyperboreans to the island of Delos, she assumed the form of a she-wolf to escape the anger of
Here. Whether the account be correct or not has not yet been verified; I give it merely as it is currently told.
There is no more of truth in the current statement that the she-wolf bears once and only once in her lifetime.

The cat and the ichneumon bear as many young as the dog, and live on the same food; they live about six
years. The cubs of the panther are born blind like those of the wolf, and the female bears four at the most at
one birth. The particulars of conception are the same for the thos, or civet, as for the dog; the cubs of the
animal are born blind, and the female bears two, or three, or four at a birth. It is long in the body and low in
stature; but not withstanding the shortness of its legs it is exceptionally fleet of foot, owing to the suppleness
of its frame and its capacity for leaping.

There is found in Syria a so-called mule. It is not the same as the cross between the horse and ass, but
resembles it just as a wild ass resembles the domesticated congener, and derives its name from the
resemblance. Like the wild ass, this wild mule is remarkable for its speed. The animals of this species
interbreed with one another; and a proof of this statement may be gathered from the fact that a certain number
of them were brought into Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces, the father of Pharnabazus, and the animal is there
still. The number originally introduced was nine, and there are three there at the present day.

The phenomena of generation in regard to the mouse are the most astonishing both for the number of the
young and for the rapidity of recurrence in the births. On one occasion a she-mouse in a state of pregnancy
was shut up by accident in a jar containing millet-seed, and after a little while the lid of the jar was removed
and upwards of one hundred and twenty mice were found inside it.

The rate of propagation of field mice in country places, and the destruction that they cause, are beyond all
telling. In many places their number is so incalculable that but very little of the corn-crop is left to the
farmer; and so rapid is their mode of proceeding that sometimes a small farmer will one day observe that it is
time for reaping, and on the following morning, when he takes his reapers afield, he finds his entire crop
devoured. Their disappearance is unaccountable: in a few days not a mouse will there be to be seen. And yet
in the time before these few days men fail to keep down their numbers by fumigating and unearthing them, or
by regularly hunting them and turning in swine upon them; for pigs, by the way, turn up the mouse-holes by
rooting with their snouts. Foxes also hunt them, and the wild ferrets in particular destroy them, but they make
no way against the prolific qualities of the animal and the rapidity of its breeding. When they are
super-abundant, nothing succeeds in thinning them down except the rain; but after heavy rains they disappear
rapidly.

In a certain district of Persia when a female mouse is dissected the female embryos appear to be pregnant.
Some people assert, and positively assert, that a female mouse by licking salt can become pregnant without
the intervention of the male.

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Mice in Egypt are covered with bristles like the hedgehog. There is also a different breed of mice that walk
on their two hind-legs; their front legs are small and their hind-legs long; the breed is exceedingly numerous.
There are many other breeds of mice than are here referred to.

Book VII

As to Man's growth, first within his mother's womb and afterward to old age, the course of nature, in so far as
man is specially concerned, is after the following manner. And, by the way, the difference of male and female
and of their respective organs has been dealt with heretofore. When twice seven years old, in the most of
cases, the male begins to engender seed; and at the same time hair appears upon the pubes, in like manner, so
Alcmaeon of Croton remarks, as plants first blossom and then seed. About the same time, the voice begins to
alter, getting harsher and more uneven, neither shrill as formerly nor deep as afterward, nor yet of any even
tone, but like an instrument whose strings are frayed and out of tune; and it is called, by way of by-word, the
bleat of the billy-goat. Now this breaking of the voice is the more apparent in those who are making trial of
their sexual powers; for in those who are prone to lustfulness the voice turns into the voice of a man, but not
so in the continent. For if a lad strive diligently to hinder his voice from breaking, as some do of those who
devote themselves to music, the voice lasts a long while unbroken and may even persist with little change.
And the breasts swell and likewise the private parts, altering in size and shape. (And by the way, at this time
of life those who try by friction to provoke emission of seed are apt to experience pain as well as voluptuous
sensations.) At the same age in the female, the breasts swell and the so-called catamenia commence to flow;
and this fluid resembles fresh blood. There is another discharge, a white one, by the way, which occurs in
girls even at a very early age, more especially if their diet be largely of a fluid nature; and this malady causes
arrest of growth and loss of flesh. In the majority of cases the catamenia are noticed by the time the breasts
have grown to the height of two fingers' breadth. In girls, too, about this time the voice changes to a deeper
note; for while in general the woman's voice is higher than the man's, so also the voices of girls are pitched in
a higher key than the elder women's, just as the boy's are higher than the men's; and the girls' voices are
shriller than the boys', and a maid's flute is tuned sharper than a lad's.

Girls of this age have much need of surveillance. For then in particular they feel a natural impulse to make
usage of the sexual faculties that are developing in them; so that unless they guard against any further
impulse beyond that inevitable one which their bodily development of itself supplies, even in the case of
those who abstain altogether from passionate indulgence, they contract habits which are apt to continue into
later life. For girls who give way to wantonness grow more and more wanton; and the same is true of boys,
unless they be safeguarded from one temptation and another; for the passages become dilated and set up a
local flux or running, and besides this the recollection of pleasure associated with former indulgence creates a
longing for its repetition.

Some men are congenitally impotent owing to structural defect; and in like manner women also may suffer
from congenital incapacity. Both men and women are liable to constitutional change, growing healthier or
more sickly, or altering in the way of leanness, stoutness, and vigour; thus, after puberty some lads who were
thin before grow stout and healthy, and the converse also happens; and the same is equally true of girls. For
when in boy or girl the body is loaded with superfluous matter, then, when such superfluities are got rid of in
the spermatic or catamenial discharge, their bodies improve in health and condition owing to the removal of
what had acted as an impediment to health and proper nutrition; but in such as are of opposite habit their
bodies become emaciated and out of health, for then the spermatic discharge in the one case and the
catamenial flow in the other take place at the cost of natural healthy conditions.

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Furthermore, in the case of maidens the condition of the breasts is diverse in different individuals, for they
are sometimes quite big and sometimes little; and as a general rule their size depends on whether or not the
body was burthened in childhood with superfluous material. For when the signs of womanhood are nigh but
not come, the more there be of moisture the more will it cause the breasts to swell, even to the bursting point;
and the result is that the breasts remain during after-life of the bulk that they then acquired. And among men,
the breasts grow more conspicuous and more like to those of women, both in young men and old, when the
individual temperament is moist and sleek and the reverse of sinewy, and all the more among the
dark-complexioned than the fair.

At the outset and till the age of one and twenty the spermatic discharge is devoid of fecundity; afterwards it
becomes fertile, but young men and women produce undersized and imperfect progeny, as is the case also
with the common run of animals. Young women conceive readily, but, having conceived, their labour in
childbed is apt to be difficult.

The frame fails of reaching its full development and ages quickly in men of intemperate lusts and in women
who become mothers of many children; for it appears to be the case that growth ceases when the woman has
given birth to three children. Women of a lascivious disposition grow more sedate and virtuous after they
have borne several children.

After the age of twenty-one women are fully ripe for child-bearing, but men go on increasing in vigour.
When the spermatic fluid is of a thin consistency it is infertile; when granular it is fertile and likely to
produce male children, but when thin and unclotted it is apt to produce female offspring. And it is about this
time of life that in men the beard makes its appearance.

The onset of the catamenia in women takes place towards the end of the month; and on this account the
wiseacres assert that the moon is feminine, because the discharge in women and the waning of the moon
happen at one and the same time, and after the wane and the discharge both one and the other grow whole
again. (In some women the catamenia occur regularly but sparsely every month, and more abundantly every
third month.) With those in whom the ailment lasts but a little while, two days or three, recovery is easy; but
where the duration is longer, the ailment is more troublesome. For women are ailing during these days; and
sometimes the discharge is sudden and sometimes gradual, but in all cases alike there is bodily distress until
the attack be over. In many cases at the commencement of the attack, when the discharge is about to appear,
there occur spasms and rumbling noises within the womb until such time as the discharge manifests itself.

Under natural conditions it is after recovery from these symptoms that conception takes place in women, and
women in whom the signs do not manifest themselves for the most part remain childless. But the rule is not
without exception, for some conceive in spite of the absence of these symptoms; and these are cases in which
a secretion accumulates, not in such a way as actually to issue forth, but in amount equal to the residuum left
in the case of child-bearing women after the normal discharge has taken place. And some conceive while the
signs are on but not afterwards, those namely in whom the womb closes up immediately after the discharge.
In some cases the menses persist during pregnancy up to the very last; but the result in these cases is that the
offspring are poor, and either fail to survive or grow up weakly.

In many cases, owing to excessive desire, arising either from youthful impetuosity or from lengthened
abstinence, prolapsion of the womb takes place and the catamenia appear repeatedly, thrice in the month,
until conception occurs; and then the womb withdraws upwards again to its proper place...

As we have remarked above, the discharge is wont to be more abundant in women than in the females of any
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other animals. In creatures that do not bring forth their young alive nothing of the sort manifests itself, this
particular superfluity being converted into bodily substance; and by the way, in such animals the females are
sometimes larger than the males; and moreover, the material is used up sometimes for scutes and sometimes
for scales, and sometimes for the abundant covering of feathers, whereas in the vivipara possessed of limbs it
is turned into hair and into bodily substance (for man alone among them is smooth-skinned), and into urine,
for this excretion is in the majority of such animals thick and copious. Only in the case of women is the
superfluity turned into a discharge instead of being utilized in these other ways.

There is something similar to be remarked of men: for in proportion to his size man emits more seminal fluid
than any other animal (for which reason man is the smoothest of animals), especially such men as are of a
moist habit and not over corpulent, and fair men in greater degree than dark. It is likewise with women; for in
the stout, great part of the excretion goes to nourish the body. In the act of intercourse, women of a fair
complexion discharge a more plentiful secretion than the dark; and furthermore, a watery and pungent diet
conduces to this phenomenon.

It is a sign of conception in women when the place is dry immediately after intercourse. If the lips of the
orifice be smooth conception is difficult, for the matter slips off; and if they be thick it is also difficult. But if
on digital examination the lips feel somewhat rough and adherent, and if they be likewise thin, then the
chances are in favour of conception. Accordingly, if conception be desired, we must bring the parts into such
a condition as we have just described; but if on the contrary we want to avoid conception then we must bring
about a contrary disposition. Wherefore, since if the parts be smooth conception is prevented, some anoint
that part of the womb on which the seed falls with oil of cedar, or with ointment of lead or with frankincense,
commingled with olive oil. If the seed remain within for seven days then it is certain that conception has
taken place; for it is during that period that what is known as effluxion takes place.

In most cases the menstrual discharge recurs for some time after conception has taken place, its duration
being mostly thirty days in the case of a female and about forty days in the case of a male child. After
parturition also it is common for the discharge to be withheld for an equal number of days, but not in all cases
with equal exactitude. After conception, and when the above-mentioned days are past, the discharge no
longer takes its natural course but finds its way to the breasts and turns to milk. The first appearance of milk
in the breasts is scant in quantity and so to speak cobwebby or interspersed with little threads. And when
conception has taken place, there is apt to be a sort of feeling in the region of the flanks, which in some cases
quickly swell up a little, especially in thin persons, and also in the groin.

In the case of male children the first movement usually occurs on the right-hand side of the womb and about
the fortieth day, but if the child be a female then on the left-hand side and about the ninetieth day. However,
we must by no means assume this to be an accurate statement of fact, for there are many exceptions, in which
the movement is manifested on the right-hand side though a female child be coming, and on the left-hand
side though the infant be a male. And in short, these and all suchlike phenomena are usually subject to
differences that may be summed up as differences of degree.

About this period the embryo begins to resolve into distinct parts, it having hitherto consisted of a fleshlike
substance without distinction of parts.

What is called effluxion is a destruction of the embryo within the first week, while abortion occurs up to the
fortieth day; and the greater number of such embryos as perish do so within the space of these forty days.

In the case of a male embryo aborted at the fortieth day, if it be placed in cold water it holds together in a sort
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of membrane, but if it be placed in any other fluid it dissolves and disappears. If the membrane be pulled to
bits the embryo is revealed, as big as one of the large kind of ants; and all the limbs are plain to see, including
the penis, and the eyes also, which as in other animals are of great size. But the female embryo, if it suffer
abortion during the first three months, is as a rule found to be undifferentiated; if however it reach the fourth
month it comes to be subdivided and quickly attains further differentiation. In short, while within the womb,
the female infant accomplishes the whole development of its parts more slowly than the male, and more
frequently than the man-child takes ten months to come to perfection. But after birth, the females pass more
quickly than the males through youth and maturity and age; and this is especially true of those that bear many
children, as indeed I have already said.

When the womb has conceived the seed, straightway in the majority of cases it closes up until seven months
are fulfilled; but in the eighth month it opens, and the embryo, if it be fertile, descends in the eighth month.
But such embryos as are not fertile but are devoid of breath at eight months old, their mothers do not bring
into the world by parturition at eight months, neither does the embryo descend within the womb at that period
nor does the womb open. And it is a sign that the embryo is not capable of life if it be formed without the
above-named circumstances taking place.

After conception women are prone to a feeling of heaviness in all parts of their bodies, and for instance they
experience a sensation of darkness in front of the eyes and suffer also from headache. These symptoms
appear sooner or later, sometimes as early as the tenth day, according as the patient be more or less burthened
with superfluous humours. Nausea also and sickness affect the most of women, and especially such as those
that we have just now mentioned, after the menstrual discharge has ceased and before it is yet turned in the
direction of the breasts.

Moreover, some women suffer most at the beginning of their pregnancy and some at a later period when the
embryo has had time to grow; and in some women it is a common occurrence to suffer from strangury
towards the end of their time. As a general rule women who are pregnant of a male child escape
comparatively easily and retain a comparatively healthy look, but it is otherwise with those whose infant is a
female; for these latter look as a rule paler and suffer more pain, and in many cases they are subject to
swellings of the legs and eruptions on the body. Nevertheless the rule is subject to exceptions.

Women in pregnancy are a prey to all sorts of longings and to rapid changes of mood, and some folks call
this the 'ivy-sickness'; and with the mothers of female infants the longings are more acute, and they are less
contented when they have got what they desired.

In a certain few cases the patient feels unusually well during pregnancy. The worst time of all is just when the
child's hair is beginning to grow.

In pregnant women their own natural hair is inclined to grow thin and fall out, but on the other hand hair
tends to grow on parts of the body where it was not wont to be. As a general rule, a man-child is more prone
to movement within its mother's womb than a female child, and it is usually born sooner. And labour in the
case of female children is apt to be protracted and sluggish, while in the case of male children it is acute and
by a long way more difficult. Women who have connexion with their husbands shortly before childbirth are
delivered all the more quickly. Occasionally women seem to be in the pains of labour though labour has not
in fact commenced, what seemed like the commencement of labour being really the result of the foetus
turning its head.

Now all other animals bring the time of pregnancy to an end in a uniform way; in other words, one single
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term of pregnancy is defined for each of them. But in the case of mankind alone of all animals the times are
diverse; for pregnancy may be of seven months' duration, or of eight months or of nine, and still more
commonly of ten months, while some few women go even into the eleventh month.

Children that come into the world before seven months can under no circumstances survive. The
seven-months' children are the earliest that are capable of life, and most of them are weakly-for which
reason, by the way, it is customary to swaddle them in wool,-and many of them are born with some of the
orifices of the body imperforate, for instance the ears or the nostrils. But as they get bigger they become more
perfectly developed, and many of them grow up.

In Egypt, and in some other places where the women are fruitful and are wont to bear and bring forth many
children without difficulty, and where the children when born are capable of living even if they be born
subject to deformity, in these places the eight-months' children live and are brought up, but in Greece it is
only a few of them that survive while most perish. And this being the general experience, when such a child
does happen to survive the mother is apt to think that it was not an eight months' child after all, but that she
had conceived at an earlier period without being aware of it.

Women suffer most pain about the fourth and the eighth months, and if the foetus perishes in the fourth or in
the eighth month the mother also succumbs as a general rule; so that not only do the eight-months' children
not live, but when they die their mothers are in great danger of their own lives. In like manner children that
are apparently born at a later term than eleven months are held to be in doubtful case; inasmuch as with them
also the beginning of conception may have escaped the notice of the mother. What I mean to say is that often
the womb gets filled with wind, and then when at a later period connexion and conception take place, they
think that the former circumstance was the beginning of conception from the similarity of the symptoms that
they experienced.

Such then are the differences between mankind and other animals in regard to the many various modes of
completion of the term of pregnancy. Furthermore, some animals produce one and some produce many at a
birth, but the human species does sometimes the one and sometimes the other. As a general rule and among
most nations the women bear one child a birth; but frequently and in many lands they bear twins, as for
instance in Egypt especially. Sometimes women bring forth three and even four children, and especially in
certain parts of the world, as has already been stated. The largest number ever brought forth is five, and such
an occurrence has been witnessed on several occasions. There was once upon a time a certain women who
had twenty children at four births; each time she had five, and most of them grew up.

Now among other animals, if a pair of twins happen to be male and female they have as good a chance of
surviving as though both had been males or both females; but among mankind very few twins survive if one
happen to be a boy and the other a girl.

Of all animals the woman and the mare are most inclined to receive the commerce of the male during
pregnancy; while all other animals when they are pregnant avoid the male, save those in which the
phenomenon of superfoetation occurs, such as the hare. Unlike that animal, the mare after once conceiving
cannot be rendered pregnant again, but brings forth one foal only, at least as a general rule; in the human
species cases of superfoetation are rare, but they do happen now and then.

An embryo conceived some considerable time after a previous conception does not come to perfection, but
gives rise to pain and causes the destruction of the earlier embryo; and, by the way, a case has been known to
occur where owing to this destructive influence no less than twelve embryos conceived by superfoetation
have been discharged. But if the second conception take place at a short interval, then the mother bears that
which was later conceived, and brings forth the two children like actual twins, as happened, according to the
legend, in the case of Iphicles and Hercules. The following also is a striking example: a certain woman,

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having committed adultery, brought forth the one child resembling her husband and the other resembling the
adulterous lover.

The case has also occurred where a woman, being pregnant of twins, has subsequently conceived a third
child; and in course of time she brought forth the twins perfect and at full term, but the third a five-months'
child; and this last died there and then. And in another case it happened that the woman was first delivered of
a seven-months' child, and then of two which were of full term; and of these the first died and the other two
survived.

Some also have been known to conceive while about to miscarry, and they have lost the one child and been
delivered of the other.

If women while going with child cohabit after the eighth month the child is in most cases born covered over
with a slimy fluid. Often also the child is found to be replete with food of which the mother had partaken.

When women have partaken of salt in overabundance their children are apt to be born destitute of nails.

Milk that is produced earlier than the seventh month is unfit for use; but as soon as the child is fit to live the
milk is fit to use. The first of the milk is saltish, as it is likewise with sheep. Most women are sensibly
affected by wine during pregnancy, for if they partake of it they grow relaxed and debilitated.

The beginning of child-bearing in women and of the capacity to procreate in men, and the cessation of these
functions in both cases, coincide in the one case with the emission of seed and in the other with the discharge
of the catamenia: with this qualification that there is a lack of fertility at the commencement of these
symptoms, and again towards their close when the emissions become scanty and weak. The age at which the
sexual powers begin has been related already. As for their end, the menstrual discharges ceases in most
women about their fortieth year; but with those in whom it goes on longer it lasts even to the fiftieth year, and
women of that age have been known to bear children. But beyond that age there is no case on record.

Men in most cases continue to be sexually competent until they are sixty years old, and if that limit be
overpassed then until seventy years; and men have been actually known to procreate children at seventy years
of age. With many men and many women it so happens that they are unable to produce children to one
another, while they are able to do so in union with other individuals. The same thing happens with regard to
the production of male and female offspring; for sometimes men and women in union with one another
produce male children or female, as the case may be, but children of the opposite sex when otherwise mated.
And they are apt to change in this respect with advancing age: for sometimes a husband and wife while they
are young produce female children and in later life male children; and in other cases the very contrary occurs.
And just the same thing is true in regard to the generative faculty: for some while young are childless, but
have children when they grow older; and some have children to begin with, and later on no more.

There are certain women who conceive with difficulty, but if they do conceive, bring the child to maturity;
while others again conceive readily, but are unable to bring the child to birth. Furthermore, some men and
some women produce female offspring and some male, as for instance in the story of Hercules, who among
all his two and seventy children is said to have begotten but one girl. Those women who are unable to
conceive, save with the help of medical treatment or some other adventitious circumstance, are as a general
rule apt to bear female children rather than male.

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It is a common thing with men to be at first sexually competent and afterwards impotent, and then again to
revert to their former powers.

From deformed parents come deformed children, lame from lame and blind from blind, and, speaking
generally, children often inherit anything that is peculiar in their parents and are born with similar marks,
such as pimples or scars. Such things have been known to be handed down through three generations; for
instance, a certain man had a mark on his arm which his son did not possess, but his grandson had it in the
same spot though not very distinct.

Such cases, however, are few; for the children of cripples are mostly sound, and there is no hard and fast rule
regarding them. While children mostly resemble their parents or their ancestors, it sometimes happens that no
such resemblance is to be traced. But parents may pass on resemblance after several generations, as in the
case of the woman in Elis, who committed adultery with a negro; in this case it was not the woman's own
daughter but the daughter's child that was a blackamoor.

As a rule the daughters have a tendency to take after the mother, and the boys after the father; but sometimes
it is the other way, the boys taking after the mother and the girls after the father. And they may resemble both
parents in particular features.

There have been known cases of twins that had no resemblance to one another, but they are alike as a general
rule. There was once upon a time a woman who had intercourse with her husband a week after giving birth to
a child and she conceived and bore a second child as like the first as any twin. Some women have a tendency
to produce children that take after themselves, and others children that take after the husband; and this latter
case is like that of the celebrated mare in Pharsalus, that got the name of the Honest Wife.

In the emission of sperm there is a preliminary discharge of air, and the outflow is manifestly caused by a
blast of air; for nothing is cast to a distance save by pneumatic pressure. After the seed reaches the womb and
remains there for a while, a membrane forms around it; for when it happens to escape before it is distinctly
formed, it looks like an egg enveloped in its membrane after removal of the eggshell; and the membrane is
full of veins.

All animals whatsoever, whether they fly or swim or walk upon dry land, whether they bring forth their
young alive or in the egg, develop in the same way: save only that some have the navel attached to the womb,
namely the viviparous animals, and some have it attached to the egg, and some to both parts alike, as in a
certain sort of fishes. And in some cases membranous envelopes surround the egg, and in other cases the
chorion surrounds it. And first of all the animal develops within the innermost envelope, and then another
membrane appears around the former one, which latter is for the most part attached to the womb, but is in
part separated from it and contains fluid. In between is a watery or sanguineous fluid, which the women folk
call the forewaters.

All animals, or all such as have a navel, grow by the navel. And the navel is attached to the cotyledon in all
such as possess cotyledons, and to the womb itself by a vein in all such as have the womb smooth. And as
regards their shape within the womb, the four-footed animals all lie stretched out, and the footless animals lie
on their sides, as for instance fishes; but two-legged animals lie in a bent position, as for instance birds; and
human embryos lie bent, with nose between the knees and eyes upon the knees, and the ears free at the sides.

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All animals alike have the head upwards to begin with; but as they grow and approach the term of egress
from the womb they turn downwards, and birth in the natural course of things takes place in all animals head
foremost; but in abnormal cases it may take place in a bent position, or feet foremost.

The young of quadrupeds when they are near their full time contain excrements, both liquid and in the form
of solid lumps, the latter in the lower part of the bowel and the urine in the bladder.

In those animals that have cotyledons in the womb the cotyledons grow less as the embryo grows bigger, and
at length they disappear altogether. The navel-string is a sheath wrapped about blood-vessels which have
their origin in the womb, from the cotyledons in those animals which possess them and from a blood-vessel
in those which do not. In the larger animals, such as the embryos of oxen, the vessels are four in number, and
in smaller animals two; in the very little ones, such as fowls, one vessel only.

Of the four vessels that run into the embryo, two pass through the liver where the so-called gates or 'portae'
are, running in the direction of the great vein, and the other two run in the direction of the aorta towards the
point where it divides and becomes two vessels instead of one. Around each pair of blood-vessels are
membranes, and surrounding these membranes is the navel-string itself, after the manner of a sheath. And as
the embryo grows, the veins themselves tend more and more to dwindle in size. And also as the embryo
matures it comes down into the hollow of the womb and is observed to move here, and sometimes rolls over
in the vicinity of the groin.

When women are in labour, their pains determine towards many divers parts of the body, and in most cases to
one or other of the thighs. Those are the quickest to be delivered who experience severe pains in the region of
the belly; and parturition is difficult in those who begin by suffering pain in the loins, and speedy when the
pain is abdominal. If the child about to be born be a male, the preliminary flood is watery and pale in colour,
but if a girl it is tinged with blood, though still watery. In some cases of labour these latter phenomena do not
occur, either one way or the other.

In other animals parturition is unaccompanied by pain, and the dam is plainly seen to suffer but moderate
inconvenience. In women, however, the pains are more severe, and this is especially the case in persons of
sedentary habits, and in those who are weak-chested and short of breath. Labour is apt to be especially
difficult if during the process the woman while exerting force with her breath fails to hold it in.

First of all, when the embryo starts to move and the membranes burst, there issues forth the watery flood;
then afterwards comes the embryo, while the womb everts and the afterbirth comes out from within.

The cutting of the navel-string, which is the nurse's duty, is a matter calling for no little care and skill. For
not only in cases of difficult labour must she be able to render assistance with skilful hand, but she must also
have her wits about her in all contingencies, and especially in the operation of tying the cord. For if the
afterbirth have come away, the navel is ligatured off from the afterbirth with a woollen thread and is then cut
above the ligature; and at the place where it has been tied it heals up, and the remaining portion drops off. (If
the ligature come loose the child dies from loss of blood.) But if the afterbirth has not yet come away, but
remains after the child itself is extruded, it is cut away within after the ligaturing of the cord.

It often happens that the child appears to have been born dead when it is merely weak, and when before the
umbilical cord has been ligatured, the blood has run out into the cord and its surroundings. But experienced

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midwives have been known to squeeze back the blood into the child's body from the cord, and immediately
the child that a moment before was bloodless came back to life again.

It is the natural rule, as we have mentioned above, for all animals to come into the world head foremost, and
children, moreover, have their hands stretched out by their sides. And the child gives a cry and puts its hands
up to its mouth as soon as it issues forth.

Moreover the child voids excrement sometimes at once, sometimes a little later, but in all cases during the
first day; and this excrement is unduly copious in comparison with the size of the child; it is what the
midwives call the meconium or 'poppy-juice'. In colour it resembles blood, extremely dark and pitch-like,
but later on it becomes milky, for the child takes at once to the breast. Before birth the child makes no sound,
even though in difficult labour it put forth its head while the rest of the body remains within.

In cases where flooding takes place rather before its time, it is apt to be followed by difficult parturition. But
if discharge take place after birth in small quantity, and in cases where it only takes place at the beginning
and does not continue till the fortieth day, then in such cases women make a better recovery and are the
sooner ready to conceive again.

Until the child is forty days old it neither laughs nor weeps during waking hours, but of nights it sometimes
does both; and for the most part it does not even notice being tickled, but passes most of its time in sleep. As
it keeps on growing, it gets more and more wakeful; and moreover it shows signs of dreaming, though it is
long afterwards before it remembers what it dreams.

In other animals there is no contrasting difference between one bone and another, but all are properly formed;
but in children the front part of the head is soft and late of ossifying. And by the way, some animals are born
with teeth, but children begin to cut their teeth in the seventh month; and the front teeth are the first to come
through, sometimes the upper and sometimes the lower ones. And the warmer the nurses' milk so much the
quicker are the children's teeth to come.

After parturition and the cleasing flood the milk comes in plenty, and in some women it flows not only from
the nipples but at divers parts of the breasts, and in some cases even from the armpits. And for some time
afterwards there continue to be certain indurated parts of the breast called strangalides, or 'knots', which occur
when it so happens that the moisture is not concocted, or when it finds no outlet but accumulates within. For
the whole breast is so spongy that if a woman in drinking happen to swallow a hair, she gets a pain in her
breast, which ailment is called 'trichia'; and the pain lasts till the hair either find its own way out or be sucked
out with the milk. Women continue to have milk until their next conception; and then the milk stops coming
and goes dry, alike in the human species and in the quadrupedal vivipara. So long as there is a flow of milk
the menstrual purgations do not take place, at least as a general rule, though the discharge has been known to
occur during the period of suckling. For, speaking generally, a determination of moisture does not take place
at one and the same time in several directions; as for instance the menstrual purgations tend to be scanty in
persons suffering from haemorrhoids. And in some women the like happens owing to their suffering from
varices, when the fluids issue from the pelvic region before entering into the womb. And patients who during
suppression of the menses happen to vomit blood are no whit the worse.

Children are very commonly subject to convulsions, more especially such of them as are more than ordinarily
well-nourished on rich or unusually plentiful milk from a stout nurse. Wine is bad for infants, in that it tends

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to excite this malady, and red wine is worse than white, especially when taken undiluted; and most things that
tend to induce flatulency are also bad, and constipation too is prejudicial. The majority of deaths in infancy
occur before the child is a week old, hence it is customary to name the child at that age, from a belief that it
has now a better chance of survival. This malady is worst at the full of the moon; and by the way, it is a
dangerous symptom when the spasms begin in the child's back.

Book VIM

WE have now discussed the physical characteristics of animals and their methods of generation. Their habits
and their modes of living vary according to their character and their food.

In the great majority of animals there are traces of psychical qualities or attitudes, which qualities are more
markedly differentiated in the case of human beings. For just as we pointed out resemblances in the physical
organs, so in a number of animals we observe gentleness or fierceness, mildness or cross temper, courage, or
timidity, fear or confidence, high spirit or low cunning, and, with regard to intelligence, something equivalent
to sagacity. Some of these qualities in man, as compared with the corresponding qualities in animals, differ
only quantitatively: that is to say, a man has more or less of this quality, and an animal has more or less of
some other; other qualities in man are represented by analogous and not identical qualities: for instance, just
as in man we find knowledge, wisdom, and sagacity, so in certain animals there exists some other natural
potentiality akin to these. The truth of this statement will be the more clearly apprehended if we have regard
to the phenomena of childhood: for in children may be observed the traces and seeds of what will one day be
settled psychological habits, though psychologically a child hardly differs for the time being from an animal;
so that one is quite justified in saying that, as regards man and animals, certain psychical qualities are
identical with one another, whilst others resemble, and others are analogous to, each other.

Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to
determine the exact line of demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie. Thus,
next after lifeless things in the upward scale comes the plant, and of plants one will differ from another as to
its amount of apparent vitality; and, in a word, the whole genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of life as
compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with other corporeal entities. Indeed, as we just
remarked, there is observed in plants a continuous scale of ascent towards the animal. So, in the sea, there are
certain objects concerning which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable.
For instance, certain of these objects are fairly rooted, and in several cases perish if detached; thus the pinna
is rooted to a particular spot, and the solen (or razor-shell) cannot survive withdrawal from its burrow.
Indeed, broadly speaking, the entire genus of testaceans have a resemblance to vegetables, if they be
contrasted with such animals as are capable of progression.

In regard to sensibility, some animals give no indication whatsoever of it, whilst others indicate it but
indistinctly. Further, the substance of some of these intermediate creatures is fleshlike, as is the case with the
so-called tethya (or ascidians) and the acalephae (or sea- anemones); but the sponge is in every respect like a
vegetable. And so throughout the entire animal scale there is a graduated differentiation in amount of vitality
and in capacity for motion.

A similar statement holds good with regard to habits of life. Thus of plants that spring from seed the one
function seems to be the reproduction of their own particular species, and the sphere of action with certain
animals is similarly limited. The faculty of reproduction, then, is common to all alike. If sensibility be
superadded, then their lives will differ from one another in respect to sexual intercourse through the varying
amount of pleasure derived therefrom, and also in regard to modes of parturition and ways of rearing their

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young. Some animals, like plants, simply procreate their own species at definite seasons; other animals busy
themselves also in procuring food for their young, and after they are reared quit them and have no further
dealings with them; other animals are more intelligent and endowed with memory, and they live with their
offspring for a longer period and on a more social footing.

The life of animals, then, may be divided into two acts-procreation and feeding; for on these two acts all
their interests and life concentrate. Their food depends chiefly on the substance of which they are severally
constituted; for the source of their growth in all cases will be this substance. And whatsoever is in conformity
with nature is pleasant, and all animals pursue pleasure in keeping with their nature.

Animals are also differentiated locally: that is to say, some live upon dry land, while others live in the water.
And this differentiation may be interpreted in two different ways. Thus, some animals are termed terrestrial
as inhaling air, and others aquatic as taking in water; and there are others which do not actually take in these
elements, but nevertheless are constitutionally adapted to the cooling influence, so far as is needful to them,
of one element or the other, and hence are called terrestrial or aquatic though they neither breathe air nor take
in water. Again, other animals are so called from their finding their food and fixing their habitat on land or in
water: for many animals, although they inhale air and breed on land, yet derive their food from the water, and
live in water for the greater part of their lives; and these are the only animals to which as living in and on two
elements the term 'amphibious' is applicable. There is no animal taking in water that is terrestrial or aerial or
that derives its food from the land, whereas of the great number of land animals inhaling air many get their
food from the water; moreover some are so peculiarly organized that if they be shut off altogether from the
water they cannot possibly live, as for instance, the so-called sea-turtle, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the
seal, and some of the smaller creatures, such as the fresh-water tortoise and the frog: now all these animals
choke or drown if they do not from time to time breathe atmospheric air: they breed and rear their young on
dry land, or near the land, but they pass their lives in water.

But the dolphin is equipped in the most remarkable way of all animals: the dolphin and other similar aquatic
animals, including the other cetaceans which resemble it; that is to say, the whale, and all the other creatures
that are furnished with a blow-hole. One can hardly allow that such an animal is terrestrial and terrestrial
only, or aquatic and aquatic only, if by terrestrial we mean an animal that inhales air, and if by aquatic we
mean an animal that takes in water. For the fact is the dolphin performs both these processes: he takes in
water and discharges it by his blow-hole, and he also inhales air into his lungs; for, by the way, the creature
is furnished with this organ and respires thereby, and accordingly, when caught in the nets, he is quickly
suffocated for lack of air. He can also live for a considerable while out of the water, but all this while he
keeps up a dull moaning sound corresponding to the noise made by air-breathing animals in general;
furthermore, when sleeping, the animal keeps his nose above water, and he does so that he may breathe the
air. Now it would be unreasonable to assign one and the same class of animals to both categories, terrestrial
and aquatic, seeing that these categories are more or less exclusive of one another; we must accordingly
supplement our definition of the term 'aquatic' or 'marine'. For the fact is, some aquatic animals take in water
and discharge it again, for the same reason that leads air-breathing animals to inhale air: in other words, with
the object of cooling the blood. Others take in water as incidental to their mode of feeding; for as they get
their food in the water they cannot but take in water along with their food, and if they take in water they must
be provided with some organ for discharging it. Those blooded animals, then, that use water for a purpose
analogous to respiration are provided with gills; and such as take in water when catching their prey, with the
blow-hole. Similar remarks are applicable to molluscs and crustaceans; for again it is by way of procuring
food that these creatures take in water.

Aquatic in different ways, the differences depending on bodily relation to external temperature and on habit
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of life, are such animals on the one hand as take in air but live in water, and such on the other hand as take in
water and are furnished with gills but go upon dry land and get their living there. At present only one animal
of the latter kind is known, the so-called cordylus or water-newt; this creature is furnished not with lungs but
with gills, but for all that it is a quadruped and fitted for walking on dry land.

In the case of all these animals their nature appears in some kind of a way to have got warped, just as some
male animals get to resemble the female, and some female animals the male. The fact is that animals, if they
be subjected to a modification in minute organs, are liable to immense modifications in their general
configuration. This phenomenon may be observed in the case of gelded animals: only a minute organ of the
animal is mutilated, and the creature passes from the male to the female form. We may infer, then, that if in
the primary conformation of the embryo an infinitesimally minute but absolutely essential organ sustain a
change of magnitude one way or the other, the animal will in one case turn to male and in the other to female;
and also that, if the said organ be obliterated altogether, the animal will be of neither one sex nor the other.
And so by the occurrence of modification in minute organs it comes to pass that one animal is terrestrial and
another aquatic, in both senses of these terms. And, again, some animals are amphibious whilst other animals
are not amphibious, owing to the circumstance that in their conformation while in the embryonic condition
there got intermixed into them some portion of the matter of which their subsequent food is constituted; for,
as was said above, what is in conformity with nature is to every single animal pleasant and agreeable.

Animals then have been categorized into terrestrial and aquatic in three ways, according to their assumption
of air or of water, the temperament of their bodies, or the character of their food; and the mode of life of an
animal corresponds to the category in which it is found. That is to say, in some cases the animal depends for
its terrestrial or aquatic nature on temperament and diet combined, as well as upon its method of respiration;
and sometimes on temperament and habits alone.

Of testaceans, some, that are incapable of motion, subsist on fresh water, for, as the sea water dissolves into
its constituents, the fresh water from its greater thinness percolates through the grosser parts; in fact, they live
on fresh water just as they were originally engendered from the same. Now that fresh water is contained in
the sea and can be strained off from it can be proved in a thoroughly practical way. Take a thin vessel of
moulded wax, attach a cord to it, and let it down quite empty into the sea: in twenty-four hours it will be
found to contain a quantity of water, and the water will be fresh and drinkable.

Sea-anemones feed on such small fishes as come in their way. The mouth of this creature is in the middle of
its body; and this fact may be clearly observed in the case of the larger varieties. Like the oyster it has a duct
for the outlet of the residuum; and this duct is at the top of the animal. In other words, the sea-anemone
corresponds to the inner fleshy part of the oyster, and the stone to which the one creature clings corresponds
to the shell which encases the other.

The limpet detaches itself from the rock and goes about in quest of food. Of shell-fish that are mobile, some
are carnivorous and live on little fishes, as for instance, the purple murex-and there can be no doubt that the
purple murex is carnivorous, as it is caught by a bait of fish; others are carnivorous, but feed also on marine
vegetation.

The sea-turtles feed on shell-fish-for, by the way, their mouths are extraordinarily hard; whatever object it
seizes, stone or other, it crunches into bits, but when it leaves the water for dry land it browses on grass).
These creatures suffer greatly, and oftentimes die when they lie on the surface of the water exposed to a
scorching sun; for, when once they have risen to the surface, they find a difficulty in sinking again.

Crustaceans feed in like manner. They are omnivorous; that is to say, they live on stones, slime, sea-weed,
and excrement-as for instance the rock-crab-and are also carnivorous. The crawfish or spiny-lobster can get
the better of fishes even of the larger species, though in some of them it occasionally finds more than its

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match. Thus, this animal is so overmastered and cowed by the octopus that it dies of terror if it become aware
of an octopus in the same net with itself. The crawfish can master the conger-eel, for owing to the rough
spines of the crawfish the eel cannot slip away and elude its hold. The conger-eel, however, devours the
octopus, for owing to the slipperiness of its antagonist the octopus can make nothing of it. The crawfish feeds
on little fish, capturing them beside its hole or dwelling place; for, by the way, it is found out at sea on rough
and stony bottoms, and in such places it makes its den. Whatever it catches, it puts into its mouth with its
pincer-like claws, like the common crab. Its nature is to walk straight forward when it has nothing to fear,
with its feelers hanging sideways; if it be frightened, it makes its escape backwards, darting off to a great
distance. These animals fight one another with their claws, just as rams fight with their horns, raising them
and striking their opponents; they are often also seen crowded together in herds. So much for the mode of life
of the crustacean.

Molluscs are all carnivorous; and of molluscs the calamary and the sepia are more than a match for fishes
even of the large species. The octopus for the most part gathers shellfish, extracts the flesh, and feeds on that;
in fact, fishermen recognize their holes by the number of shells lying about. Some say that the octopus
devours its own species, but this statement is incorrect; it is doubtless founded on the fact that the creature is
often found with its tentacles removed, which tentacles have really been eaten off by the conger.

Fishes, all without exception, feed on spawn in the spawning season; but in other respects the food varies
with the varying species. Some fishes are exclusively carnivorous, as the cartilaginous genus, the conger, the
channa or Serranus, the tunny, the bass, the synodon or Dentex, the amia, the sea-perch, and the muraena.
The red mullet is carnivorous, but feeds also on sea-weed, on shell-fish, and on mud. The grey mullet feeds
on mud, the dascyllus on mud and offal, the scarus or parrot-fish and the melanurus on sea-weed, the saupe
on offal and sea-weed; the saupe feeds also on zostera, and is the only fish that is captured with a gourd. All
fishes devour their own species, with the single exception of the cestreus or mullet; and the conger is
especially ravenous in this respect. The cephalus and the mullet in general are the only fish that eat no flesh;
this may be inferred from the facts that when caught they are never found with flesh in their intestines, and
that the bait used to catch them is not flesh but barley-cake. Every fish of the mullet-kind lives on sea-weed
and sand. The cephalus, called by some the 'chelon', keeps near in to the shore, the peraeas keeps out at a
distance from it, and feeds on a mucous substance exuding from itself, and consequently is always in a
starved condition. The cephalus lives in mud, and is in consequence heavy and slimy; it never feeds on any
other fish. As it lives in mud, it has every now and then to make a leap upwards out of the mud so as to wash
the slime from off its body. There is no creature known to prey upon the spawn of the cephalus, so that the
species is exceedingly numerous; when, however, the is full-grown it is preyed upon by a number of fishes,
and especially by the acharnas or bass. Of all fishes the mullet is the most voracious and insatiable, and in
consequence its belly is kept at full stretch; whenever it is not starving, it may be considered as out of
condition. When it is frightened, it hides its head in mud, under the notion that it is hiding its whole body.
The synodon is carnivorous and feeds on molluscs. Very often the synodon and the channa cast up their
stomachs while chasing smaller fishes; for, be it remembered, fishes have their stomachs close to the mouth,
and are not furnished with a gullet.

Some fishes then, as has been stated, are carnivorous, and carnivorous only, as the dolphin, the synodon, the
gilt-head, the selachians, and the molluscs. Other fishes feed habitually on mud or sea-weed or sea-moss or
the so-called stalk-weed or growing plants; as for instance, the phycis, the goby, and the rock-fish; and, by
the way, the only meat that the phycis will touch is that of prawns. Very often, however, as has been stated,
they devour one another, and especially do the larger ones devour the smaller. The proof of their being
carnivorous is the fact that they can be caught with flesh for a bait. The mackerel, the tunny, and the bass are
for the most part carnivorous, but they do occasionally feed on sea-weed. The sargue feeds on the leavings of
the trigle or red mullet. The red mullet burrows in the mud, when it sets the mud in motion and quits its
haunt, the sargue settles down into the place and feeds on what is left behind, and prevents any smaller fish
from settling in the immediate vicinity.

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Of all fishes the so-called scarus, or parrot, wrasse, is the only one known to chew the cud like a quadruped.

As a general rule the larger fishes catch the smaller ones in their mouths whilst swimming straight after them
in the ordinary position; but the selachians, the dolphin, and all the cetacea must first turn over on their backs,
as their mouths are placed down below; this allows a fair chance of escape to the smaller fishes, and, indeed,
if it were not so, there would be very few of the little fishes left, for the speed and voracity of the dolphin is
something marvellous.

Of eels a few here and there feed on mud and on chance morsels of food thrown to them; the greater part of
them subsist on fresh water. Eel-breeders are particularly careful to have the water kept perfectly clear, by its
perpetually flowing on to flat slabs of stone and then flowing off again; sometimes they coat the eel-tanks
with plaster. The fact is that the eel will soon choke if the water is not clear as his gills are peculiarly small.
On this account, when fishing for eels, they disturb the water. In the river Strymon eel-fishing takes place at
the rising of the Pleiads, because at this period the water is troubled and the mud raised up by contrary winds;
unless the water be in this condition, it is as well to leave the eels alone. When dead the eel, unlike the
majority of fishes, neither floats on nor rises to the surface; and this is owing to the smallness of the stomach.
A few eels are supplied with fat, but the greater part have no fat whatsoever. When removed from the water
they can live for five or six days; for a longer period if north winds prevail, for a shorter if south winds. If
they are removed in summer from the pools to the tanks they will die; but not so if removed in the winter.
They are not capable of holding out against any abrupt change; consequently they often die in large numbers
when men engaged in transporting them from one place to another dip them into water particularly cold.
They will also die of suffocation if they be kept in a scanty supply of water. This same remark will hold good
for fishes in general; for they are suffocated if they be long confined in a short supply of water, with the water
kept unchanged-just as animals that respire are suffocated if they be shut up with a scanty supply of air. The
eel in some cases lives for seven or eight years. The river-eel feeds on his own species, on grass, or on roots,
or on any chance food found in the mud. Their usual feeding-time is at night, and during the day-time they
retreat into deep water. And so much for the food of fishes.

Of birds, such as have crooked talons are carnivorous without exception, and cannot swallow corn or
bread-food even if it be put into their bills in tit-bits; as for instance, the eagle of every variety, the kite, the
two species of hawks, to wit, the dove-hawk and the sparrow-hawk-and, by the way, these two hawks differ
greatly in size from one another-and the buzzard. The buzzard is of the same size as the kite, and is visible at
all seasons of the year. There is also the phene (or lammergeier) and the vulture. The phene is larger than the
common eagle and is ashen in colour. Of the vulture there are two varieties: one small and whitish, the other
comparatively large and rather more ashen-coloured than white. Further, of birds that fly by night, some
have crooked talons, such as the night-raven, the owl, and the eagle-owl. The eagle-owl resembles the
common owl in shape, but it is quite as large as the eagle. Again, there is the eleus, the Aegolian owl, and the
little horned owl. Of these birds, the eleus is somewhat larger than the barn-door cock, and the Aegolian owl
is of about the same size as the eleus, and both these birds hunt the jay; the little horned owl is smaller than
the common owl. All these three birds are alike in appearance, and all three are carnivorous.

Again, of birds that have not crooked talons some are carnivorous, such as the swallow. Others feed on grubs,
such as the chaffinch, the sparrow, the 'batis', the green linnet, and the titmouse. Of the titmouse there are
three varieties. The largest is the finch-titmouse — for it is about the size of a finch; the second has a long tail,
and from its habitat is called the hill-titmouse; the third resembles the other two in appearance, but is less in
size than either of them. Then come the becca-fico, the black-cap, the bull-finch, the robin, the epilais, the
midget-bird, and the golden-crested wren. This wren is little larger than a locust, has a crest of bright red
gold, and is in every way a beautiful and graceful little bird. Then the anthus, a bird about the size of a finch;

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and the mountain-finch, which resembles a finch and is of much the same size, but its neck is blue, and it is
named from its habitat; and lastly the wren and the rook. The above-enumerated birds and the like of them
feed either wholly or for the most part on grubs, but the following and the like feed on thistles; to wit, the
linnet, the thraupis, and the goldfinch. All these birds feed on thistles, but never on grubs or any living thing
whatever; they live and roost also on the plants from which they derive their food.

There are other birds whose favourite food consists of insects found beneath the bark of trees; as for instance,
the great and the small pie, which are nicknamed the woodpeckers. These two birds resemble one another in
plumage and in note, only that the note of the larger bird is the louder of the two; they both frequent the
trunks of trees in quest of food. There is also the greenpie, a bird about the size of a turtle-dove,
green-coloured all over, that pecks at the bark of trees with extraordinary vigour, lives generally on the
branch of a tree, has a loud note, and is mostly found in the Peloponnese. There is another bird called the
'grub-picker' (or tree-creeper), about as small as the penduline titmouse, with speckled plumage of an ashen
colour, and with a poor note; it is a variety of the woodpecker.

There are other birds that live on fruit and herbage, such as the wild pigeon or ringdove, the common pigeon,
the rock-dove, and the turtle-dove. The ring-dove and the common pigeon are visible at all seasons; the
turtledove only in the summer, for in winter it lurks in some hole or other and is never seen. The rock-dove is
chiefly visible in the autumn, and is caught at that season; it is larger than the common pigeon but smaller
than the wild one; it is generally caught while drinking. These pigeons bring their young ones with them
when they visit this country. All our other birds come to us in the early summer and build their nests here,
and the greater part of them rear their young on animal food, with the sole exception of the pigeon and its
varieties.

The whole genus of birds may be pretty well divided into such as procure their food on dry land, such as
frequent rivers and lakes, and such as live on or by the sea.

Of water-birds such as are web-footed live actually on the water, while such as are split-footed live by the
edge of it-and, by the way, water-birds that are not carnivorous live on water-plants, (but most of them live
on fish), like the heron and the spoonbill that frequent the banks of lakes and rivers; and the spoonbill, by the
way, is less than the common heron, and has a long flat bill. There are furthermore the stork and the seamew;
and the seamew, by the way, is ashen-coloured. There is also the schoenilus, the cinclus, and the
white-rump. Of these smaller birds the last mentioned is the largest, being about the size of the common
thrush; all three may be described as 'wag-tails'. Then there is the scalidris, with plumage ashen-grey, but
speckled. Moreover, the family of the halcyons or kingfishers live by the waterside. Of kingfishers there are
two varieties; one that sits on reeds and sings; the other, the larger of the two, is without a note. Both these
varieties are blue on the back. There is also the trochilus (or sandpiper). The halcyon also, including a variety
termed the cerylus, is found near the seaside. The crow also feeds on such animal life as is cast up on the
beach, for the bird is omnivorous. There are also the white gull, the cepphus, the aethyia, and the charadrius.

Of web-footed birds, the larger species live on the banks of rivers and lakes; as the swan, the duck, the coot,
the grebe, and the teal-a bird resembling the duck but less in size-and the water-raven or cormorant. This
bird is the size of a stork, only that its legs are shorter; it is web-footed and is a good swimmer; its plumage
is black. It roosts on trees, and is the only one of all such birds as these that is found to build its nest in a tree.
Further there is the large goose, the little gregarious goose, the vulpanser, the horned grebe, and the penelops.
The sea-eagle lives in the neighbourhood of the sea and seeks its quarry in lagoons.

A great number of birds are omnivorous. Birds of prey feed on any animal or bird, other than a bird of prey,
that they may catch. These birds never touch one of their own genus, whereas fishes often devour members
actually of their own species.

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Birds, as a rule, are very spare drinkers. In fact birds of prey never drink at all, excepting a very few, and
these drink very rarely; and this last observation is peculiarly applicable to the kestrel. The kite has been seen
to drink, but he certainly drinks very seldom.

Animals that are coated with tessellates-such as the lizard and the other quadrupeds, and the serpents-are
omnivorous: at all events they are carnivorous and graminivorous; and serpents, by the way, are of all
animals the greatest gluttons.

Tessellated animals are spare drinkers, as are also all such animals as have a spongy lung, and such a lung,
scantily supplied with blood, is found in all oviparous animals. Serpents, by the by, have an insatiate appetite
for wine; consequently, at times men hunt for snakes by pouring wine into saucers and putting them into the
interstices of walls, and the creatures are caught when inebriated. Serpents are carnivorous, and whenever
they catch an animal they extract all its juices and eject the creature whole. And, by the way, this is done by
all other creatures of similar habits, as for instance the spider; only that the spider sucks out the juices of its
prey outside, and the serpent does so in its belly. The serpent takes any food presented to him, eats birds and
animals, and swallows eggs entire. But after taking his prey he stretches himself until he stands straight out to
the very tip, and then he contracts and squeezes himself into little compass, so that the swallowed mass may
pass down his outstretched body; and this action on his part is due to the tenuity and length of his gullet.
Spiders and snakes can both go without food for a long time; and this remark may be verified by observation
of specimens kept alive in the shops of the apothecaries.

Of viviparous quadrupeds such as are fierce and jag-toothed are without exception carnivorous; though, by
the way, it is stated of the wolf, but of no other animal, that in extremity of hunger it will eat a certain kind of
earth. These carnivorous animals never eat grass except when they are sick, just as dogs bring on a vomit by
eating grass and thereby purge themselves.

The solitary wolf is more apt to attack man than the wolf that goes with a pack.

The animal called 'glanus' by some and 'hyaena' by others is as large as a wolf, with a mane like a horse, only
that the hair is stiffer and longer and extends over the entire length of the chine. It will lie in wait for a man
and chase him, and will inveigle a dog within its reach by making a noise that resembles the retching noise of
a man vomiting. It is exceedingly fond of putrefied flesh, and will burrow in a graveyard to gratify this
propensity.

The bear is omnivorous. It eats fruit, and is enabled by the suppleness of its body to climb a tree; it also eats
vegetables, and it will break up a hive to get at the honey; it eats crabs and ants also, and is in a general way
carnivorous. It is so powerful that it will attack not only the deer but the wild boar, if it can take it unawares,
and also the bull. After coming to close quarters with the bull it falls on its back in front of the animal, and,
when the bull proceeds to butt, the bear seizes hold of the bull's horns with its front paws, fastens its teeth
into his shoulder, and drags him down to the ground. For a short time together it can walk erect on its hind
legs. All the flesh it eats it first allows to become carrion.

The lion, like all other savage and jag- toothed animals, is carnivorous. It devours its food greedily and
fiercely, and often swallows its prey entire without rending it at all; it will then go fasting for two or three
days together, being rendered capable of this abstinence by its previous surfeit. It is a spare drinker. It
discharges the solid residuum in small quantities, about every other day or at irregular intervals, and the

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substance of it is hard and dry like the excrement of a dog. The wind discharged from off its stomach is
pungent, and its urine emits a strong odour, a phenomenon which, in the case of dogs, accounts for their habit
of sniffing at trees; for, by the way, the lion, like the dog, lifts its leg to void its urine. It infects the food it
eats with a strong smell by breathing on it, and when the animal is cut open an overpowering vapour exhales
from its inside.

Some wild quadrupeds feed in lakes and rivers; the seal is the only one that gets its living on the sea. To the
former class of animals belong the so-called castor, the satyrium, the otter, and the so-called latax, or beaver.
The beaver is flatter than the otter and has strong teeth; it often at night-time emerges from the water and
goes nibbling at the bark of the aspens that fringe the riversides. The otter will bite a man, and it is said that
whenever it bites it will never let go until it hears a bone crack. The hair of the beaver is rough, intermediate
in appearance between the hair of the seal and the hair of the deer.

Jag-toothed animals drink by lapping, as do also some animals with teeth differently formed, as the mouse.
Animals whose upper and lower teeth meet evenly drink by suction, as the horse and the ox; the bear neither
laps nor sucks, but gulps down his drink. Birds, a rule, drink by suction, but the long necked birds stop and
elevate their heads at intervals; the purple coot is the only one (of the long-necked birds) that swallows water
by gulps.

Horned animals, domesticated or wild, and all such as are not jag-toothed, are all frugivorous and
graminivorous, save under great stress of hunger. The pig is an exception, it cares little for grass or fruit, but
of all animals it is the fondest of roots, owing to the fact that its snout is peculiarly adapted for digging them
out of the ground; it is also of all animals the most easily pleased in the matter of food. It takes on fat more
rapidly in proportion to its size than any other animal; in fact, a pig can be fattened for the market in sixty
days. Pig-dealers can tell the amount of flesh taken on, by having first weighed the animal while it was being
starved. Before the fattening process begins, the creature must be starved for three days; and, by the way,
animals in general will take on fat if subjected previously to a course of starvation; after the three days of
starvation, pig-breeders feed the animal lavishly. Breeders in Thrace, when fattening pigs, give them a drink
on the first day; then they miss one, and then two days, then three and four, until the interval extends over
seven days. The pigs' meat used for fattening is composed of barley, millet, figs, acorns, wild pears, and
cucumbers. These animals-and other animals that have warm bellies-are fattened by repose. (Pigs also fatten
the better by being allowed to wallow in mud. They like to feed in batches of the same age. A pig will give
battle even to a wolf.) If a pig be weighed when living, you may calculate that after death its flesh will weigh
five-sixths of that weight, and the hair, the blood, and the rest will weigh the other sixth. When suckling their
young, swinelike all other animals-get attenuated. So much for these animals.

Cattle feed on corn and grass, and fatten on vegetables that tend to cause flatulency, such as bitter vetch or
bruised beans or bean-stalks. The older ones also will fatten if they be fed up after an incision has been made
into their hide, and air blown thereinto. Cattle will fatten also on barley in its natural state or on barley finely
winnowed, or on sweet food, such as figs, or pulp from the wine-press, or on elm-leaves. But nothing is so
fattening as the heat of the sun and wallowing in warm waters. If the horns of young cattle be smeared with
hot wax, you may mold them to any shape you please, and cattle are less subject to disease of the hoof if you
smear the horny parts with wax, pitch, or olive oil. Herded cattle suffer more when they are forced to change
their pasture ground by frost than when snow is the cause of change. Cattle grow all the more in size when
they are kept from sexual commerce over a number of years; and it is with a view to growth in size that in
Epirus the so-called Pyrrhic kine are not allowed intercourse with the bull until they are nine years old; from

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which circumstance they are nicknamed the 'unbulled' kine. Of these Pyrrhic cattle, by the way, they say that
there are only about four hundred in the world, that they are the private property of the Epirote royal family,
that they cannot thrive out of Epirus, and that people elsewhere have tried to rear them, but without success.

Horses, mules, and asses feed on corn and grass, but are fattened chiefly by drink. Just in proportion as beasts
of burden drink water, so will they more or less enjoy their food, and a place will give good or bad feeding
according as the water is good or bad. Green corn, while ripening, will give a smooth coat; but such corn is
injurious if the spikes are too stiff and sharp. The first crop of clover is unwholesome, and so is clover over
which ill-scented water runs; for the clover is sure to get the taint of the water. Cattle like clear water for
drinking; but the horse in this respect resembles the camel, for the camel likes turbid and thick water, and will
never drink from a stream until he has trampled it into a turbid condition. And, by the way, the camel can go
without water for as much as four days, but after that when he drinks, he drinks in immense quantities.

The elephant at the most can eat nine Macedonian medimni of fodder at one meal; but so large an amount is
unwholesome. As a general rule it can take six or seven medimni of fodder, five medimni of wheat, and five
mareis of wine-six cotylae going to the maris. An elephant has been known to drink right off fourteen
Macedonian metretae of water, and another metretae later in the day.

Camels live for about thirty years; in some exceptional cases they live much longer, and instances have been
known of their living to the age of a hundred. The elephant is said by some to live for about two hundred
years; by others, for three hundred.

Sheep and goats are graminivorous, but sheep browse assiduously and steadily, whereas goats shift their
ground rapidly, and browse only on the tips of the herbage. Sheep are much improved in condition by
drinking, and accordingly they give the flocks salt every five days in summer, to the extent of one medimnus
to the hundred sheep, and this is found to render a flock healthier and fatter. In fact they mix salt with the
greater part of their food; a large amount of salt is mixed into their bran (for the reason that they drink more
when thirsty), and in autumn they get cucumbers with a sprinkling of salt on them; this admixture of salt in
their food tends also to increase the quantity of milk in the ewes. If sheep be kept on the move at midday they
will drink more copiously towards evening; and if the ewes be fed with salted food as the lambing season
draws near they will get larger udders. Sheep are fattened by twigs of the olive or of the oleaster, by vetch,
and bran of every kind; and these articles of food fatten all the more if they be first sprinkled with brine.
Sheep will take on flesh all the better if they be first put for three days through a process of starving. In
autumn, water from the north is more wholesome for sheep than water from the south. Pasture grounds are all
the better if they have a westerly aspect.

Sheep will lose flesh if they be kept overmuch on the move or be subjected to any hardship. In winter time
shepherds can easily distinguish the vigorous sheep from the weakly, from the fact that the vigorous sheep
are covered with hoar-frost while the weakly ones are quite free of it; the fact being that the weakly ones
feeling oppressed with the burden shake themselves and so get rid of it. The flesh of all quadrupeds
deteriorates in marshy pastures, and is the better on high grounds. Sheep that have flat tails can stand the
winter better than long-tailed sheep, and short-fleeced sheep than the shaggy-fleeced; and sheep with crisp
wool stand the rigour of winter very poorly. Sheep are healthier than goats, but goats are stronger than sheep.
(The fleeces and the wool of sheep that have been killed by wolves, as also the clothes made from them, are

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exceptionally infested with lice.)

Of insects, such as have teeth are omnivorous; such as have a tongue feed on liquids only, extracting with that
organ juices from all quarters. And of these latter some may be called omnivorous, inasmuch as they feed on
every kind of juice, as for instance, the common fly; others are blood-suckers, such as the gadfly and the
horse-fly, others again live on the juices of fruits and plants. The bee is the only insect that invariably
eschews whatever is rotten; it will touch no article of food unless it have a sweet-tasting juice, and it is
particularly fond of drinking water if it be found bubbling up clear from a spring underground.

So much for the food of animals of the leading genera.

The habits of animals are all connected with either breeding and the rearing of young, or with the procuring a
due supply of food; and these habits are modified so as to suit cold and heat and the variations of the seasons.
For all animals have an instinctive perception of the changes of temperature, and, just as men seek shelter in
houses in winter, or as men of great possessions spend their summer in cool places and their winter in sunny
ones, so also all animals that can do so shift their habitat at various seasons.

Some creatures can make provision against change without stirring from their ordinary haunts; others
migrate, quitting Pontus and the cold countries after the autumnal equinox to avoid the approaching winter,
and after the spring equinox migrating from warm lands to cool lands to avoid the coming heat. In some cases
they migrate from places near at hand, in others they may be said to come from the ends of the world, as in
the case of the crane; for these birds migrate from the steppes of Scythia to the marshlands south of Egypt
where the Nile has its source. And it is here, by the way, that they are said to fight with the pygmies; and the
story is not fabulous, but there is in reality a race of dwarfish men, and the horses are little in proportion, and
the men live in caves underground. Pelicans also migrate, and fly from the Strymon to the Ister, and breed on
the banks of this river. They depart in flocks, and the birds in front wait for those in the rear, owing to the fact
that when the flock is passing over the intervening mountain range, the birds in the rear lose sight of their
companions in the van.

Fishes also in a similar manner shift their habitat now out of the Euxine and now into it. In winter they move
from the outer sea in towards land in quest of heat; in summer they shift from shallow waters to the deep sea
to escape the heat.

Weakly birds in winter and in frosty weather come down to the plains for warmth, and in summer migrate to
the hills for coolness. The more weakly an animal is the greater hurry will it be in to migrate on account of
extremes of temperature, either hot or cold; thus the mackerel migrates in advance of the tunnies, and the
quail in advance of the cranes. The former migrates in the month of Boedromion, and the latter in the month
of Maemacterion. All creatures are fatter in migrating from cold to heat than in migrating from heat to cold;
thus the quail is fatter when he emigrates in autumn than when he arrives in spring. The migration from cold
countries is contemporaneous with the close of the hot season. Animals are in better trim for breeding
purposes in spring-time, when they change from hot to cool lands.

Of birds, the crane, as has been said, migrates from one end of the world to the other; they fly against the
wind. The story told about the stone is untrue: to wit, that the bird, so the story goes, carries in its inside a
stone by way of ballast, and that the stone when vomited up is a touchstone for gold.

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The cushat and the rock-dove migrate, and never winter in our country, as is the case also with the
turtle-dove; the common pigeon, however, stays behind. The quail also migrates; only, by the way, a few
quails and turtle-doves may stay behind here and there in sunny districts. Cushats and turtle-doves flock
together, both when they arrive and when the season for migration comes round again. When quails come to
land, if it be fair weather or if a north wind is blowing, they will pair off and manage pretty comfortably; but
if a southerly wind prevail they are greatly distressed owing to the difficulties in the way of flight, for a
southerly wind is wet and violent. For this reason bird-catchers are never on the alert for these birds during
fine weather, but only during the prevalence of southerly winds, when the bird from the violence of the wind
is unable to fly. And, by the way, it is owing to the distress occasioned by the bulkiness of its body that the
bird always screams while flying: for the labour is severe. When the quails come from abroad they have no
leaders, but when they migrate hence, the glottis flits along with them, as does also the landrail, and the eared
owl, and the corncrake. The corncrake calls them in the night, and when the birdcatchers hear the croak of the
bird in the nighttime they know that the quails are on the move. The landrail is like a marsh bird, and the
glottis has a tongue that can project far out of its beak. The eared owl is like an ordinary owl, only that it has
feathers about its ears; by some it is called the night-raven. It is a great rogue of a bird, and is a capital
mimic; a bird-catcher will dance before it and, while the bird is mimicking his gestures, the accomplice
comes behind and catches it. The common owl is caught by a similar trick.

As a general rule all birds with crooked talons are short-necked, flat-tongued, and disposed to mimicry. The
Indian bird, the parrot, which is said to have a man's tongue, answers to this description; and, by the way,
after drinking wine, the parrot becomes more saucy than ever.

Of birds, the following are migratory-the crane, the swan, the pelican, and the lesser goose.

Of fishes, some, as has been observed, migrate from the outer seas in towards shore, and from the shore
towards the outer seas, to avoid the extremes of cold and heat.

Fish living near to the shore are better eating than deep-sea fish. The fact is they have more abundant and
better feeding, for wherever the sun's heat can reach vegetation is more abundant, better in quality, and more
delicate, as is seen in any ordinary garden. Further, the black shore-weed grows near to shore; the other
shore-weed is like wild weed. Besides, the parts of the sea near to shore are subjected to a more equable
temperature; and consequently the flesh of shallow-water fishes is firm and consistent, whereas the flesh of
deep-water fishes is flaccid and watery.

The following fishes are found near into the shore-the synodon, the black bream, the merou, the gilthead, the
mullet, the red mullet, the wrasse, the weaver, the callionymus, the goby, and rock-fishes of all kinds. The
following are deep-sea fishes — the trygon, the cartilaginous fishes, the white conger, the serranus, the
erythrinus, and the glaucus. The braize, the sea-scorpion, the black conger, the muraena, and the piper or
sea-cuckoo are found alike in shallow and deep waters. These fishes, however, vary for various localities; for
instance, the goby and all rock-fish are fat off the coast of Crete. Again, the tunny is out of season in
summer, when it is being preyed on by its own peculiar louse-parasite, but after the rising of Arcturus, when
the parasite has left it, it comes into season again. A number of fish also are found in sea-estuaries; such as
the saupe, the gilthead, the red mullet, and, in point of fact, the greater part of the gregarious fishes. The
bonito also is found in such waters, as, for instance, off the coast of Alopeconnesus; and most species of
fishes are found in Lake Bistonis. The coly-mackerel as a rule does not enter the Euxine, but passes the
summer in the Propontis, where it spawns, and winters in the Aegean. The tunny proper, the pelamys, and the
bonito penetrate into the Euxine in summer and pass the summer there; as do also the greater part of such fish
as swim in shoals with the currents, or congregate in shoals together. And most fish congregate in shoals, and

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shoal-fishes in all cases have leaders.

Fish penetrate into the Euxine for two reasons, and firstly for food. For the feeding is more abundant and
better in quality owing to the amount of fresh river-water that discharges into the sea, and moreover, the
large fishes of this inland sea are smaller than the large fishes of the outer sea. In point of fact, there is no
large fish in the Euxine excepting the dolphin and the porpoise, and the dolphin is a small variety; but as soon
as you get into the outer sea the big fishes are on the big scale. Furthermore, fish penetrate into this sea for
the purpose of breeding; for there are recesses there favourable for spawning, and the fresh and exceptionally
sweet water has an invigorating effect upon the spawn. After spawning, when the young fishes have attained
some size, the parent fish swim out of the Euxine immediately after the rising of the Pleiads. If winter comes
in with a southerly wind, they swim out with more or less of deliberation; but, if a north wind be blowing,
they swim out with greater rapidity, from the fact that the breeze is favourable to their own course. And, by
the way, the young fish are caught about this time in the neighbourhood of Byzantium very small in size, as
might have been expected from the shortness of their sojourn in the Euxine. The shoals in general are visible
both as they quit and enter the Euxine. The trichiae, however, only can be caught during their entry, but are
never visible during their exit; in point of fact, when a trichia is caught running outwards in the
neighbourhood of Byzantium, the fishermen are particularly careful to cleanse their nets, as the circumstance
is so singular and exceptional. The way of accounting for this phenomenon is that this fish, and this one only,
swims northwards into the Danube, and then at the point of its bifurcation swims down southwards into the
Adriatic. And, as a proof that this theory is correct, the very opposite phenomenon presents itself in the
Adriatic; that is to say, they are not caught in that sea during their entry, but are caught during their exit.

Tunny-fish swim into the Euxine keeping the shore on their right, and swim out of it with the shore upon
their left. It is stated that they do so as being naturally weak-sighted, and seeing better with the right eye.

During the daytime shoal-fish continue on their way, but during the night they rest and feed. But if there be
moonlight, they continue their journey without resting at all. Some people accustomed to sea-life assert that
shoal-fish at the period of the winter solstice never move at all, but keep perfectly still wherever they may
happen to have been overtaken by the solstice, and this lasts until the equinox.

The coly-mackerel is caught more frequently on entering than on quitting the Euxine. And in the Propontis
the fish is at its best before the spawning season. Shoal-fish, as a rule, are caught in greater quantities as they
leave the Euxine, and at that season they are in the best condition. At the time of their entrance they are
caught in very plump condition close to shore, but those are in comparatively poor condition that are caught
farther out to sea. Very often, when the coly-mackerel and the mackerel are met by a south wind in their exit,
there are better catches to the southward than in the neighbourhood of Byzantium. So much then for the
phenomenon of migration of fishes.

Now the same phenomenon is observed in fishes as in terrestrial animals in regard to hibernation: in other
words, during winter fishes take to concealing themselves in out of the way places, and quit their places of
concealment in the warmer season. But, by the way, animals go into concealment by way of refuge against
extreme heat, as well as against extreme cold. Sometimes an entire genus will thus seek concealment; in other
cases some species will do so and others will not. For instance, the shell-fish seek concealment without
exception, as is seen in the case of those dwelling in the sea, the purple murex, the ceryx, and all such like;
but though in the case of the detached species the phenomenon is obvious-for they hide themselves, as is
seen in the scallop, or they are provided with an operculum on the free surface, as in the case of land
snails-in the case of the non-detached the concealment is not so clearly observed. They do not go into hiding
at one and the same season; but the snails go in winter, the purple murex and the ceryx for about thirty days at
the rising of the Dog-star, and the scallop at about the same period. But for the most part they go into
concealment when the weather is either extremely cold or extremely hot.

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14

Insects almost all go into hiding, with the exception of such of them as live in human habitations or perish
before the completion of the year. They hide in the winter; some of them for several days, others for only the
coldest days, as the bee. For the bee also goes into hiding: and the proof that it does so is that during a certain
period bees never touch the food set before them, and if a bee creeps out of the hive, it is quite transparent,
with nothing whatsoever in its stomach; and the period of its rest and hiding lasts from the setting of the
Pleiads until springtime.

Animals take their winter-sleep or summer-sleep by concealing themselves in warm places, or in places
where they have been used to lie concealed.

Several blooded animals take this sleep, such as the pholidotes or tessellates, namely, the serpent, the lizard,
the gecko, and the river, crocodile, all of which go into hiding for four months in the depth of winter, and
during that time eat nothing. Serpents in general burrow under ground for this purpose; the viper conceals
itself under a stone.

A great number of fishes also take this sleep, and notably, the hippurus and coracinus in winter time; for,
whereas fish in general may be caught at all periods of the year more or less, there is this singularity observed
in these fishes, that they are caught within a certain fixed period of the year, and never by any chance out of
it. The muraena also hides, and the orphus or sea-perch, and the conger. Rock-fish pair off, male and female,
for hiding (just as for breeding); as is observed in the case of the species of wrasse called the thrush and the
owzel, and in the perch.

The tunny also takes a sleep in winter in deep waters, and gets exceedingly fat after the sleep. The fishing
season for the tunny begins at the rising of the Pleiads and lasts, at the longest, down to the setting of
Arcturus; during the rest of the year they are hid and enjoying immunity. About the time of hibernation a few
tunnies or other hibernating fishes are caught while swimming about, in particularly warm localities and in
exceptionally fine weather, or on nights of full moon; for the fishes are induced (by the warmth or the light)
to emerge for a while from their lair in quest of food.

Most fishes are at their best for the table during the summer or winter sleep.

The primas-tunny conceals itself in the mud; this may be inferred from the fact that during a particular period
the fish is never caught, and that, when it is caught after that period, it is covered with mud and has its fins
damaged. In the spring these tunnies get in motion and proceed towards the coast, coupling and breeding, and
the females are now caught full of spawn. At this time they are considered as in season, but in autumn and in
winter as of inferior quality; at this time also the males are full of milt. When the spawn is small, the fish is
hard to catch, but it is easily caught when the spawn gets large, as the fish is then infested by its parasite.
Some fish burrow for sleep in the sand and some in mud, just keeping their mouths outside.

Most fishes hide, then, during the winter only, but crustaceans, the rock-fish, the ray, and the cartilaginous
species hide only during extremely severe weather, and this may be inferred from the fact that these fishes are
never by any chance caught when the weather is extremely cold. Some fishes, however, hide during the
summer, as the glaucus or grey-back; this fish hides in summer for about sixty days. The hake also and the
gilthead hide; and we infer that the hake hides over a lengthened period from the fact that it is only caught at
long intervals. We are led also to infer that fishes hide in summer from the circumstance that the takes of
certain fish are made between the rise and setting of certain constellations: of the Dog-star in particular, the

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sea at this period being upturned from the lower depths. This phenomenon may be observed to best advantage
in the Bosporus; for the mud is there brought up to the surface and the fish are brought up along with it. They
say also that very often, when the sea-bottom is dredged, more fish will be caught by the second haul than by
the first one. Furthermore, after very heavy rains numerous specimens become visible of creatures that at
other times are never seen at all or seen only at intervals.

A great number of birds also go into hiding; they do not all migrate, as is generally supposed, to warmer
countries. Thus, certain birds (as the kite and the swallow) when they are not far off from places of this kind,
in which they have their permanent abode, betake themselves thither; others, that are at a distance from such
places, decline the trouble of migration and simply hide themselves where they are. Swallows, for instance,
have been often found in holes, quite denuded of their feathers, and the kite on its first emergence from
torpidity has been seen to fly from out some such hiding-place. And with regard to this phenomenon of
periodic torpor there is no distinction observed, whether the talons of a bird be crooked or straight; for
instance, the stork, the owzel, the turtle-dove, and the lark, all go into hiding. The case of the turtledove is
the most notorious of all, for we would defy any one to assert that he had anywhere seen a turtle-dove in
winter-time; at the beginning of the hiding time it is exceedingly plump, and during this period it moults, but
retains its plumpness. Some cushats hide; others, instead of hiding, migrate at the same time as the swallow.
The thrush and the starling hide; and of birds with crooked talons the kite and the owl hide for a few days.

Of viviparous quadrupeds the porcupine and the bear retire into concealment. The fact that the bear hides is
well established, but there are doubts as to its motive for so doing, whether it be by reason of the cold or from
some other cause. About this period the male and the female become so fat as to be hardly capable of motion.
The female brings forth her young at this time, and remains in concealment until it is time to bring the cubs
out; and she brings them out in spring, about three months after the winter solstice. The bear hides for at least
forty days; during fourteen of these days it is said not to move at all, but during most of the subsequent days
it moves, and from time to time wakes up. A she-bear in pregnancy has either never been caught at all or has
been caught very seldom. There can be no doubt but that during this period they eat nothing; for in the first
place they never emerge from their hiding-place, and further, when they are caught, their belly and intestines
are found to be quite empty. It is also said that from no food being taken the gut almost closes up, and that in
consequence the animal on first emerging takes to eating arum with the view of opening up and distending
the gut.

The dormouse actually hides in a tree, and gets very fat at that period; as does also the white mouse of
Pontus.

(Of animals that hide or go torpid some slough off what is called their 'old-age'. This name is applied to the
outermost skin, and to the casing that envelops the developing organism.)

In discussing the case of terrestrial vivipara we stated that the reason for the bear's seeking concealment is an
open question. We now proceed to treat of the tessellates. The tessellates for the most part go into hiding, and
if their skin is soft they slough off their 'old-age', but not if the skin is shell-like, as is the shell of the
tortoise-for, by the way, the tortoise and the fresh water tortoise belong to the tessellates. Thus, the old-age
is sloughed off by the gecko, the lizard, and above all, by serpents; and they slough off the skin in springtime
when emerging from their torpor, and again in the autumn. Vipers also slough off their skin both in spring
and in autumn, and it is not the case, as some aver, that this species of the serpent family is exceptional in not
sloughing. When the serpent begins to slough, the skin peels off at first from the eyes, so that any one

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ignorant of the phenomenon would suppose the animal were going blind; after that it peels off the head, and
so on, until the creature presents to view only a white surface all over. The sloughing goes on for a day and a
night, beginning with the head and ending with the tail. During the sloughing of the skin an inner layer comes
to the surface, for the creature emerges just as the embryo from its afterbirth.

All insects that slough at all slough in the same way; as the silphe, and the empis or midge, and all the
coleoptera, as for instance the cantharus-beetle. They all slough after the period of development; for just as
the afterbirth breaks from off the young of the vivipara so the outer husk breaks off from around the young of
the vermipara, in the same way both with the bee and the grasshopper. The cicada the moment after issuing
from the husk goes and sits upon an olive tree or a reed; after the breaking up of the husk the creature issues
out, leaving a little moisture behind, and after a short interval flies up into the air and sets a. chirping.

Of marine animals the crawfish and the lobster slough sometimes in the spring, and sometimes in autumn
after parturition. Lobsters have been caught occasionally with the parts about the thorax soft, from the shell
having there peeled off, and the lower parts hard, from the shell having not yet peeled off there; for, by the
way, they do not slough in the same manner as the serpent. The crawfish hides for about five months. Crabs
also slough off their old-age; this is generally allowed with regard to the soft-shelled crabs, and it is said to
be the case with the testaceous kind, as for instance with the large 'granny' crab. When these animals slough
their shell becomes soft all over, and as for the crab, it can scarcely crawl. These animals also do not cast
their skins once and for all, but over and over again.

So much for the animals that go into hiding or torpidity, for the times at which, and the ways in which, they
go; and so much also for the animals that slough off their old-age, and for the times at which they undergo
the process.

Animals do not all thrive at the same seasons, nor do they thrive alike during all extremes of weather. Further
animals of diverse species are in a diverse way healthy or sickly at certain seasons; and, in point of fact, some
animals have ailments that are unknown to others. Birds thrive in times of drought, both in their general
health and in regard to parturition, and this is especially the case with the cushat; fishes, however, with a few
exceptions, thrive best in rainy weather; on the contrary rainy seasons are bad for birds-and so by the way is
much drinking-and drought is bad for fishes. Birds of prey, as has been already stated, may in a general way
be said never to drink at all, though Hesiod appears to have been ignorant of the fact, for in his story about
the siege of Ninus he represents the eagle that presided over the auguries as in the act of drinking; all other
birds drink, but drink sparingly, as is the case also with all other spongy-lunged oviparous animals. Sickness
in birds may be diagnosed from their plumage, which is ruffled when they are sickly instead of lying smooth
as when they are well.

The majority of fishes, as has been stated, thrive best in rainy seasons. Not only have they food in greater
abundance at this time, but in a general way rain is wholesome for them just as it is for vegetation-for, by the
way, kitchen vegetables, though artificially watered, derive benefit from rain; and the same remark applies
even to reeds that grow in marshes, as they hardly grow at all without a rainfall. That rain is good for fishes
may be inferred from the fact that most fishes migrate to the Euxine for the summer; for owing to the number
of the rivers that discharge into this sea its water is exceptionally fresh, and the rivers bring down a large
supply of food. Besides, a great number of fishes, such as the bonito and the mullet, swim up the rivers and
thrive in the rivers and marshes. The sea-gudgeon also fattens in the rivers, and, as a rule, countries
abounding in lagoons furnish unusually excellent fish. While most fishes, then, are benefited by rain, they are

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chiefly benefited by summer rain; or we may state the case thus, that rain is good for fishes in spring,
summer, and autumn, and fine dry weather in winter. As a general rule what is good for men is good for
fishes also.

Fishes do not thrive in cold places, and those fishes suffer most in severe winters that have a stone in their
head, as the chromis, the basse, the sciaena, and the braize; for owing to the stone they get frozen with the
cold, and are thrown up on shore.

Whilst rain is wholesome for most fishes, it is, on the contrary, unwholesome for the mullet, the cephalus,
and the so-called marinus, for rain superinduces blindness in most of these fishes, and all the more rapidly if
the rainfall be superabundant. The cephalus is peculiarly subject to this malady in severe winters; their eyes
grow white, and when caught they are in poor condition, and eventually the disease kills them. It would
appear that this disease is due to extreme cold even more than to an excessive rainfall; for instance, in many
places and more especially in shallows off the coast of Nauplia, in the Argolid, a number of fishes have been
known to be caught out at sea in seasons of severe cold. The gilthead also suffers in winter; the acharnas
suffers in summer, and loses condition. The coracine is exceptional among fishes in deriving benefit from
drought, and this is due to the fact that heat and drought are apt to come together.

Particular places suit particular fishes; some are naturally fishes of the shore, and some of the deep sea, and
some are at home in one or the other of these regions, and others are common to the two and are at home in
both. Some fishes will thrive in one particular spot, and in that spot only. As a general rule it may be said that
places abounding in weeds are wholesome; at all events, fishes caught in such places are exceptionally fat:
that is, such fishes a a habit all sorts of localities as well. The fact is that weed-eating fishes find abundance
of their special food in such localities, and carnivorous fish find an unusually large number of smaller fish. It
matters also whether the wind be from the north or south: the longer fish thrive better when a north wind
prevails, and in summer at one and the same spot more long fish will be caught than flat fish with a north
wind blowing.

The tunny and the sword-fish are infested with a parasite about the rising of the Dog-star; that is to say,
about this time both these fishes have a grub beside their fins that is nicknamed the 'gadfly'. It resembles the
scorpion in shape, and is about the size of the spider. So acute is the pain it inflicts that the sword-fish will
often leap as high out of the water as a dolphin; in fact, it sometimes leaps over the bulwarks of a vessel and
falls back on the deck. The tunny delights more than any other fish in the heat of the sun. It will burrow for
warmth in the sand in shallow waters near to shore, or will, because it is warm, disport itself on the surface of
the sea.

The fry of little fishes escape by being overlooked, for it is only the larger ones of the small species that
fishes of the large species will pursue. The greater part of the spawn and the fry of fishes is destroyed by the
heat of the sun, for whatever of them the sun reaches it spoils.

Fishes are caught in greatest abundance before sunrise and after sunset, or, speaking generally, just about
sunset and sunrise. Fishermen haul up their nets at these times, and speak of the hauls then made as the
'nick-of-time' hauls. The fact is, that at these times fishes are particularly weak-sighted; at night they are at
rest, and as the light grows stronger they see comparatively well.

We know of no pestilential malady attacking fishes, such as those which attack man, and horses and oxen
among the quadrupedal vivipara, and certain species of other genera, domesticated and wild; but fishes do
seem to suffer from sickness; and fishermen infer this from the fact that at times fishes in poor condition, and
looking as though they were sick, and of altered colour, are caught in a large haul of well-conditioned fish of
their own species. So much for sea-fishes.

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River-fish and lake-fish also are exempt from diseases of a pestilential character, but certain species are
subject to special and peculiar maladies. For instance, the sheat-fish just before the rising of the Dog-star,
owing to its swimming near the surface of the water, is liable to sunstroke, and is paralysed by a loud peal of
thunder. The carp is subject to the same eventualities but in a lesser degree. The sheatfish is destroyed in
great quantities in shallow waters by the serpent called the dragon. In the balerus and tilon a worm is
engendered about the rising of the Dog-star, that sickens these fish and causes them to rise towards the
surface, where they are killed by the excessive heat. The chalcis is subject to a very violent malady; lice are
engendered underneath their gills in great numbers, and cause destruction among them; but no other species
of fish is subject to any such malady.

If mullein be introduced into water it will kill fish in its vicinity. It is used extensively for catching fish in
rivers and ponds; by the Phoenicians it is made use of also in the sea.

There are two other methods employed for catch-fish. It is a known fact that in winter fishes emerge from the
deep parts of rivers and, by the way, at all seasons fresh water is tolerably cold. A trench accordingly is dug
leading into a river, and wattled at the river end with reeds and stones, an aperture being left in the wattling
through which the river water flows into the trench; when the frost comes on the fish can be taken out of the
trench in weels. Another method is adopted in summer and winter alike. They run across a stream a dam
composed of brushwood and stones leaving a small open space, and in this space they insert a weel; they then
coop the fish in towards this place, and draw them up in the weel as they swim through the open space.

Shell-fish, as a rule, are benefited by rainy weather. The purple murex is an exception; if it be placed on a
shore near to where a river discharges, it will die within a day after tasting the fresh water. The murex lives
for about fifty days after capture; during this period they feed off one another, as there grows on the shell a
kind of sea-weed or sea-moss; if any food is thrown to them during this period, it is said to be done not to
keep them alive, but to make them weigh more.

To shell-fish in general drought is unwholesome. During dry weather they decrease in size and degenerate in
quality; and it is during such weather that the red scallop is found in more than usual abundance. In the
Pyrrhaean Strait the clam was exterminated, partly by the dredging-machine used in their capture, and partly
by long-continued droughts. Rainy weather is wholesome to the generality of shellfish owing to the fact that
the sea-water then becomes exceptionally sweet. In the Euxine, owing to the coldness of the climate,
shellfish are not found: nor yet in rivers, excepting a few bivalves here and there. Univalves, by the way, are
very apt to freeze to death in extremely cold weather. So much for animals that live in water.

To turn to quadrupeds, the pig suffers from three diseases, one of which is called branchos, a disease attended
with swellings about the windpipe and the jaws. It may breakout in any part of the body; very often it attacks
the foot, and occasionally the ear; the neighbouring parts also soon rot, and the decay goes on until it reaches
the lungs, when the animal succumbs. The disease develops with great rapidity, and the moment it sets in the
animal gives up eating. The swineherds know but one way to cure it, namely, by complete excision, when
they detect the first signs of the disease. There are two other diseases, which are both alike termed craurus.
The one is attended with pain and heaviness in the head, and this is the commoner of the two, the other with
diarrhoea. The latter is incurable, the former is treated by applying wine fomentations to the snout and rinsing
the nostrils with wine. Even this disease is very hard to cure; it has been known to kill within three or four
days. The animal is chiefly subject to branchos when it gets extremely fat, and when the heat has brought a
good supply of figs. The treatment is to feed on mashed mulberries, to give repeated warm baths, and to lance

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the under part of the tongue.

Pigs with flabby flesh are subject to measles about the legs, neck, and shoulders, for the pimples develop
chiefly in these parts. If the pimples are few in number the flesh is comparatively sweet, but if they be
numerous it gets watery and flaccid. The symptoms of measles are obvious, for the pimples show chiefly on
the under side of the tongue, and if you pluck the bristles off the chine the skin will appear suffused with
blood, and further the animal will be unable to keep its hind-feet at rest. Pigs never take this disease while
they are mere sucklings. The pimples may be got rid of by feeding on this kind of spelt called tiphe; and this
spelt, by the way, is very good for ordinary food. The best food for rearing and fattening pigs is chickpeas
and figs, but the one thing essential is to vary the food as much as possible, for this animal, like animals in
general lights in a change of diet; and it is said that one kind of food blows the animal out, that another
superinduces flesh, and that another puts on fat, and that acorns, though liked by the animal, render the flesh
flaccid. Besides, if a sow eats acorns in great quantities, it will miscarry, as is also the case with the ewe; and,
indeed, the miscarriage is more certain in the case of the ewe than in the case of the sow. The pig is the only
animal known to be subject to measles.

Dogs suffer from three diseases; rabies, quinsy, and sore feet. Rabies drives the animal mad, and ary animal
whatever, excepting man, will take the disease if bitten by a dog so afflicted; the disease is fatal to the dog
itself, and to any animal it may bite, man excepted. Quinsy also is fatal to dogs; and only a few recover from
disease of the feet. The camel, like the dog, is subject to rabies. The elephant, which is reputed to enjoy
immunity from all other illnesses, is occasionally subject to flatulency.

Cattle in herds are liable to two diseases, foot, sickness and craurus. In the former their feet suffer from
eruptions, but the animal recovers from the disease without even the loss of the hoof. It is found of service to
smear the horny parts with warm pitch. In craurus, the breath comes warm at short intervals; in fact, craurus
in cattle answers to fever in man. The symptoms of the disease are drooping of the ears and disinclination for
food. The animal soon succumbs, and when the carcase is opened the lungs are found to be rotten.

Horses out at pasture are free from all diseases excepting disease of the feet. From this disease they
sometimes lose their hooves: but after losing them they grow them soon again, for as one hoof is decaying it
is being replaced by another. Symptoms of the malady are a sinking in and wrinkling of the lip in the middle
under the nostrils, and in the case of the male, a twitching of the right testicle.

Stall-reared horses are subject to very numerous forms of disease. They are liable to disease called 'eileus'.
Under this disease the animal trails its hind-legs under its belly so far forward as almost to fall back on its
haunches; if it goes without food for several days and turns rabid, it may be of service to draw blood, or to
castrate the male. The animal is subject also to tetanus: the veins get rigid, as also the head and neck, and the
animal walks with its legs stretched out straight. The horse suffers also from abscesses. Another painful
illness afflicts them called the 'barley-surfeit'. The are a softening of the palate and heat of the breath; the
animal may recover through the strength of its own constitution, but no formal remedies are of any avail.

There is also a disease called nymphia, in which the animal is said to stand still and droop its head on hearing
flute-music; if during this ailment the horse be mounted, it will run off at a gallop until it is pulled. Even with
this rabies in full force, it preserves a dejected spiritless appearance; some of the symptoms are a throwing

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back of the ears followed by a projection of them, great languor, and heavy breathing. Heart-ache also is
incurable, of which the symptom is a drawing in of the flanks; and so is displacement of the bladder, which is
accompanied by a retention of urine and a drawing up of the hooves and haunches. Neither is there any cure
if the animal swallow the grape-beetle, which is about the size of the sphondyle or knuckle-beetle. The bite
of the shrewmouse is dangerous to horses and other draught animals as well; it is followed by boils. The bite
is all the more dangerous if the mouse be pregnant when she bites, for the boils then burst, but do not burst
otherwise. The cicigna-called 'chalcis' by some, and 'zignis' by others-either causes death by its bite or, at all
events, intense pain; it is like a small lizard, with the colour of the blind snake. In point of fact, according to
experts, the horse and the sheep have pretty well as many ailments as the human species. The drug known
under the name of 'sandarace' or realgar, is extremely injurious to a horse, and to all draught animals; it is
given to the animal as a medicine in a solution of water, the liquid being filtered through a colander. The
mare when pregnant apt to miscarry when disturbed by the odour of an extinguished candle; and a similar
accident happens occasionally to women in their pregnancy. So much for the diseases of the horse.

The so-called hippomanes grows, as has stated, on the foal, and the mare nibbles it off as she licks and cleans
the foal. All the curious stories connected with the hippomanes are due to old wives and to the venders of
charms. What is called the 'polium' or foal's membrane, is, as all the accounts state, delivered by the mother
before the foal appears.

A horse will recognize the neighing of any other horse with which it may have fought at any previous period.
The horse delights in meadows and marshes, and likes to drink muddy water; in fact, if water be clear, the
horse will trample in it to make it turbid, will then drink it, and afterwards will wallow in it. The animal is
fond of water in every way, whether for drinking or for bathing purposes; and this explains the peculiar
constitution of the hippopotamus or river-horse. In regard to water the ox is the opposite of the horse; for if
the water be impure or cold, or mixed up with alien matter, it will refuse to drink it.

The ass suffers chiefly from one particular disease which they call 'melis'. It arises first in the head, and a
clammy humour runs down the nostrils, thick and red; if it stays in the head the animal may recover, but if it
descends into the lungs the animal will die. Of all animals on its of its kind it is the least capable of enduring
extreme cold, which circumstance will account for the fact that the animal is not found on the shores of the
Euxine, nor in Scythia.

Elephants suffer from flatulence, and when thus afflicted can void neither solid nor liquid residuum. If the
elephant swallow earth-mould it suffers from relaxation; but if it go on taking it steadily, it will experience
no harm. From time to time it takes to swallowing stones. It suffers also from diarrhoea: in this case they
administer draughts of lukewarm water or dip its fodder in honey, and either one or the other prescription will
prove a costive. When they suffer from insomnia, they will be restored to health if their shoulders be rubbed
with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; when they have aches in their shoulders they will derive great benefit
from the application of roast pork. Some elephants like olive oil, and others do not. If there is a bit of iron in
the inside of an elephant it is said that it will pass out if the animal takes a drink of olive-oil; if the animal
refuses olive-oil, they soak a root in the oil and give it the root to swallow. So much, then, for quadrupeds.

Insects, as a general rule, thrive best in the time of year in which they come into being, especially if the
season be moist and warm, as in spring.

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In bee-hives are found creatures that do great damage to the combs; for instance, the grub that spins a web
and ruins the honeycomb: it is called the 'cleros'. It engenders an insect like itself, of a spider-shape, and
brings disease into the swarm. There is another insect resembling the moth, called by some the 'pyraustes',
that flies about a lighted candle: this creature engenders a brood full of a fine down. It is never stung by a bee,
and can only be got out of a hive by fumigation. A caterpillar also is engendered in hives, of a species
nicknamed the teredo, or 'borer', with which creature the bee never interferes. Bees suffer most when flowers
are covered with mildew, or in seasons of drought.

All insects, without exception, die if they be smeared over with oil; and they die all the more rapidly if you
smear their head with the oil and lay them out in the sun.

Variety in animal life may be produced by variety of locality: thus in one place an animal will not be found at
all, in another it will be small, or short-lived, or will not thrive. Sometimes this sort of difference is observed
in closely adjacent districts. Thus, in the territory of Miletus, in one district cicadas are found while there are
none in the district close adjoining; and in Cephalenia there is a river on one side of which the cicada is found
and not on the other. In Pordoselene there is a public road one side of which the weasel is found but not on
the other. In Boeotia the mole is found in great abundance in the neighbourhood of Orchomenus, but there are
none in Lebadia though it is in the immediate vicinity, and if a mole be transported from the one district to
the other it will refuse to burrow in the soil. The hare cannot live in Ithaca if introduced there; in fact it will
be found dead, turned towards the point of the beach where it was landed. The horseman-ant is not found in
Sicily; the croaking frog has only recently appeared in the neighbourhood of Cyrene. In the whole of Libya
there is neither wild boar, nor stag, nor wild goat; and in India, according to Ctesias-no very good authority,
by the way-there are no swine, wild or tame, but animals that are devoid of blood and such as go into hiding
or go torpid are all of immense size there. In the Euxine there are no small molluscs nor testaceans, except a
few here and there; but in the Red Sea all the testaceans are exceedingly large. In Syria the sheep have tails a
cubit in breadth; the goats have ears a span and a palm long, and some have ears that flap down to the ground;
and the cattle have humps on their shoulders, like the camel. In Lycia goats are shorn for their fleece, just as
sheep are in all other countries. In Libya the long-horned ram is born with horns, and not the ram only, as
Homer' words it, but the ewe as well; in Pontus, on the confines of Scythia, the ram is without horns.

In Egypt animals, as a rule, are larger than their congeners in Greece, as the cow and the sheep; but some are
less, as the dog, the wolf, the hare, the fox, the raven, and the hawk; others are of pretty much the same size,
as the crow and the goat. The difference, where it exists, is attributed to the food, as being abundant in one
case and insufficient in another, for instance for the wolf and the hawk; for provision is scanty for the
carnivorous animals, small birds being scarce; food is scanty also for the hare and for all frugivorous animals,
because neither the nuts nor the fruit last long.

In many places the climate will account for peculiarities; thus in Illyria, Thrace, and Epirus the ass is small,
and in Gaul and in Scythia the ass is not found at all owing to the coldness of the climate of these countries.
In Arabia the lizard is more than a cubit in length, and the mouse is much larger than our field-mouse, with
its hind-legs a span long and its front legs the length of the first finger-joint. In Libya, according to all
accounts, the length of the serpents is something appalling; sailors spin a yarn to the effect that some crews
once put ashore and saw the bones of a number of oxen, and that they were sure that the oxen had been
devoured by serpents, for, just as they were putting out to sea, serpents came chasing their galleys at full
speed and overturned one galley and set upon the crew. Again, lions are more numerous in Libya, and in that
district of Europe that lies between the Achelous and the Nessus; the leopard is more abundant in Asia Minor,
and is not found in Europe at all. As a general rule, wild animals are at their wildest in Asia, at their boldest
in Europe, and most diverse in form in Libya; in fact, there is an old saying, 'Always something fresh in

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Libya.'

It would appear that in that country animals of diverse species meet, on account of the rainless climate, at the
watering-places, and there pair together; and that such pairs will often breed if they be nearly of the same
size and have periods of gestation of the same length. For it is said that they are tamed down in their
behaviour towards each other by extremity of thirst. And, by the way, unlike animals elsewhere, they require
to drink more in wintertime than in summer: for they acquire the habit of not drinking in summer, owing to
the circumstance that there is usually no water then; and the mice, if they drink, die. Elsewhere also
bastard- animals are born to heterogeneous pairs; thus in Cyrene the wolf and the bitch will couple and breed;
and the Laconian hound is a cross between the fox and the dog. They say that the Indian dog is a cross
between the tiger and the bitch, not the first cross, but a cross in the third generation; for they say that the first
cross is a savage creature. They take the bitch to a lonely spot and tie her up: if the tiger be in an amorous
mood he will pair with her; if not he will eat her up, and this casualty is of frequent occurrence.

Locality will differentiate habits also: for instance, rugged highlands will not produce the same results as the
soft lowlands. The animals of the highlands look fiercer and bolder, as is seen in the swine of Mount Athos;
for a lowland boar is no match even for a mountain sow.

Again, locality is an important element in regard to the bite of an animal. Thus, in Pharos and other places,
the bite of the scorpion is not dangerous; elsewhere-in Caria, for instances-where scorpions are venomous as
well as plentiful and of large size, the sting is fatal to man or beast, even to the pig, and especially to a black
pig, though the pig, by the way, is in general most singularly indifferent to the bite of any other creature. If a
pig goes into water after being struck by the scorpion of Caria, it will surely die.

There is great variety in the effects produced by the bites of serpents. The asp is found in Libya; the so-called
'septic' drug is made from the body of the animal, and is the only remedy known for the bite of the original.
Among the silphium, also, a snake is found, for the bite or which a certain stone is said to be a cure: a stone
that is brought from the grave of an ancient king, which stone is put into water and drunk off. In certain parts
of Italy the bite of the gecko is fatal. But the deadliest of all bites of venomous creatures is when one
venomous animal has bitten another; as, for instance, a viper's after it has bitten a scorpion. To the great
majority of such creatures man's is fatal. There is a very little snake, by some entitled the 'holy-snake', which
is dreaded by even the largest serpents. It is about an ell long, and hairy-looking; whenever it bites an animal,
the flesh all round the wound will at once mortify. There is in India a small snake which is exceptional in this
respect, that for its bite no specific whatever is known.

Animals also vary as to their condition of health in connexion with their pregnancy.

Testaceans, such as scallops and all the oyster-family, and crustaceans, such as the lobster family, are best
when with spawn. Even in the case of the testacean we speak of spawning (or pregnancy); but whereas the
crustaceans may be seen coupling and laying their spawn, this is never the case with testaceans. Molluscs are
best in the breeding time, as the calamary, the sepia, and the octopus.

Fishes, when they begin to breed, are nearly all good for the table; but after the female has gone long with
spawn they are good in some cases, and in others are out of season. The maenis, for instance, is good at the
breeding time. The female of this fish is round, the male longer and flatter; when the female is beginning to
breed the male turns black and mottled, and is quite unfit for the table; at this period he is nicknamed the

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'goat'.

The wrasses called the owzel and the thrush, and the smaris have different colours at different seasons, as is
the case with the plumage of certain birds; that is to say, they become black in the spring and after the spring
get white again. The phycis also changes its hue: in general it is white, but in spring it is mottled; it is the
only sea-fish which is said make a bed for itself, and the female lays her spawn in this bed or nest. The
maenis, as was observed, changes its colour as does the smaris, and in summer-time changes back from
whitish to black, the change being especially marked about the fins and gills. The coracine, like the maenis, is
in best condition at breeding time; the mullet, the basse, and scaly fishes in general are in bad condition at
this period. A few fish are in much the same condition at all times, whether with spawn or not, as the glaucus.
Old fishes also are bad eating; the old tunny is unfit even for pickling, as a great part of its flesh wastes away
with age, and the same wasting is observed in all old fishes. The age of a scaly fish may be told by the size
and the hardness of its scales. An old tunny has been caught weighing fifteen talents, with the span of its tail
two cubits and a palm broad.

River-fish and lake-fish are best after they have discharged the spawn in the case of the female and the milt
in the case of the male: that is, when they have fully recovered from the exhaustion of such discharge. Some
are good in the breeding time, as the saperdis, and some bad, as the sheat-fish. As a general rule, the male
fish is better eating than the female; but the reverse holds good of the sheat-fish. The eels that are called
females are the best for the table: they look as though they were female, but they really are not so.

Book IX

OF the animals that are comparatively obscure and short-lived the characters or dispositions are not so
obvious to recognition as are those of animals that are longer-lived. These latter animals appear to have a
natural capacity corresponding to each of the passions: to cunning or simplicity, courage or timidity, to good
temper or to bad, and to other similar dispositions of mind.

Some also are capable of giving or receiving instruction-of receiving it from one another or from man: those
that have the faculty of hearing, for instance; and, not to limit the matter to audible sound, such as can
differentiate the suggested meanings of word and gesture.

In all genera in which the distinction of male and female is found, Nature makes a similar differentiation in
the mental characteristics of the two sexes. This differentiation is the most obvious in the case of human kind
and in that of the larger animals and the viviparous quadrupeds. In the case of these latter the female softer in
character, is the sooner tamed, admits more readily of caressing, is more apt in the way of learning; as, for
instance, in the Laconian breed of dogs the female is cleverer than the male. Of the Molossian breed of dogs,
such as are employed in the chase are pretty much the same as those elsewhere; but sheep-dogs of this breed
are superior to the others in size, and in the courage with which they face the attacks of wild animals.

Dogs that are born of a mixed breed between these two kinds are remarkable for courage and endurance of
hard labour.

In all cases, excepting those of the bear and leopard, the female is less spirited than the male; in regard to the
two exceptional cases, the superiority in courage rests with the female. With all other animals the female is
softer in disposition than the male, is more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive, and more attentive to
the nurture of the young: the male, on the other hand, is more spirited than the female, more savage, more
simple and less cunning. The traces of these differentiated characteristics are more or less visible everywhere,

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but they are especially visible where character is the more developed, and most of all in man.

The fact is, the nature of man is the most rounded off and complete, and consequently in man the qualities or
capacities above referred to are found in their perfection. Hence woman is more compassionate than man,
more easily moved to tears, at the same time is more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike.
She is, furthermore, more prone to despondency and less hopeful than the man, more void of shame or
self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of more retentive memory. She is also more wakeful,
more shrinking, more difficult to rouse to action, and requires a smaller quantity of nutriment.

As was previously stated, the male is more courageous than the female, and more sympathetic in the way of
standing by to help. Even in the case of molluscs, when the cuttle-fish is struck with the trident the male
stands by to help the female; but when the male is struck the female runs away.

There is enmity between such animals as dwell in the same localities or subsist on the food. If the means of
subsistence run short, creatures of like kind will fight together. Thus it is said that seals which inhabit one and
the same district will fight, male with male, and female with female, until one combatant kills the other, or
one is driven away by the other; and their young do even in like manner.

All creatures are at enmity with the carnivores, and the carnivores with all the rest, for they all subsist on
living creatures. Soothsayers take notice of cases where animals keep apart from one another, and cases
where they congregate together; calling those that live at war with one another 'dissociates', and those that
dwell in peace with one another 'associates'. One may go so far as to say that if there were no lack or stint of
food, then those animals that are now afraid of man or are wild by nature would be tame and familiar with
him, and in like manner with one another. This is shown by the way animals are treated in Egypt, for owing
to the fact that food is constantly supplied to them the very fiercest creatures live peaceably together. The fact
is they are tamed by kindness, and in some places crocodiles are tame to their priestly keeper from being fed
by him. And elsewhere also the same phenomenon is to be observed.

The eagle and the snake are enemies, for the eagle lives on snakes; so are the ichneumon and the
venom-spider, for the ichneumon preys upon the latter. In the case of birds, there is mutual enmity between
the poecilis, the crested lark, the woodpecker (?), and the chloreus, for they devour one another's eggs; so also
between the crow and the owl; for, owing to the fact that the owl is dim-sighted by day, the crow at midday
preys upon the owl's eggs, and the owl at night upon the crow's, each having the whip-hand of the other, turn
and turn about, night and day.

There is enmity also between the owl and the wren; for the latter also devours the owl's eggs. In the daytime
all other little birds flutter round the owl-a practice which is popularly termed 'admiring him'-buffet him, and
pluck out his feathers; in consequence of this habit, bird-catchers use the owl as a decoy for catching little
birds of all kinds.

The so-called presbys or 'old man' is at war with the weasel and the crow, for they prey on her eggs and her
brood; and so the turtle-dove with the pyrallis, for they live in the same districts and on the same food; and
so with the green wood pecker and the libyus; and so with kite and the raven, for, owing to his having the
advantage from stronger talons and more rapid flight the former can steal whatever the latter is holding, so
that it is food also that makes enemies of these. In like manner there is war between birds that get their living
from the sea, as between the brenthus, the gull, and the harpe; and so between the buzzard on one side and the
toad and snake on the other, for the buzzard preys upon the eggs of the two others; and so between the
turtle-dove and the chloreus; the chloreus kills the dove, and the crow kills the so-called drummer-bird.

The aegolius, and birds of prey in general, prey upon the calaris, and consequently there is war between it and
them; and so is there war between the gecko-lizard and the spider, for the former preys upon the latter; and

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so between the woodpecker and the heron, for the former preys upon the eggs and brood of the latter. And so
between the aegithus and the ass, owing to the fact that the ass, in passing a furze-bush, rubs its sore and
itching parts against the prickles; by so doing, and all the more if it brays, it topples the eggs and the brood
out of the nest, the young ones tumble out in fright, and the mother-bird, to avenge this wrong, flies at the
beast and pecks at his sore places.

The wolf is at war with the ass, the bull, and the fox, for as being a carnivore, he attacks these other animals;
and so for the same reason with the fox and the circus, for the circus, being carnivorous and furnished with
crooked talons, attacks and maims the animal. And so the raven is at war with the bull and the ass, for it flies
at them, and strikes them, and pecks at their eyes; and so with the eagle and the heron, for the former, having
crooked talons, attacks the latter, and the latter usually succumbs to the attack; and so the merlin with the
vulture; and the crex with the eleus-owl, the blackbird, and the oriole (of this latter bird, by the way, the story
goes that he was originally born out of a funeral pyre): the cause of warfare is that the crex injures both them
and their young. The nuthatch and the wren are at war with the eagle; the nuthatch breaks the eagle's eggs, so
the eagle is at war with it on special grounds, though, as a bird of prey, it carries on a general war all round.
The horse and the anthus are enemies, and the horse will drive the bird out of the field where he is grazing:
the bird feeds on grass, and sees too dimly to foresee an attack; it mimics the whinnying of the horse, flies at
him, and tries to frighten him away; but the horse drives the bird away, and whenever he catches it he kills it:
this bird lives beside rivers or on marsh ground; it has pretty plumage, and finds its without trouble. The ass
is at enmity with the lizard, for the lizard sleeps in his manger, gets into his nostril, and prevents his eating.

Of herons there are three kinds: the ash coloured, the white, and the starry heron (or bittern). Of these the first
mentioned submits with reluctance to the duties of incubation, or to union of the sexes; in fact, it screams
during the union, and it is said drips blood from its eyes; it lays its eggs also in an awkward manner, not
unattended with pain. It is at war with certain creatures that do it injury: with the eagle for robbing it, with the
fox for worrying it at night, and with the lark for stealing its eggs.

The snake is at war with the weasel and the pig; with the weasel when they are both at home, for they live on
the same food; with the pig for preying on her kind. The merlin is at war with the fox; it strikes and claws it,
and, as it has crooked talons, it kills the animal's young. The raven and the fox are good friends, for the raven
is at enmity with the merlin; and so when the merlin assails the fox the raven comes and helps the animal.
The vulture and the merlin are mutual enemies, as being both furnished with crooked talons. The vulture
fights with the eagle, and so, by the way, does does swan; and the swan is often victorious: moreover, of all
birds swans are most prone to the killing of one another.

In regard to wild creatures, some sets are at enmity with other sets at all times and under all circumstances;
others, as in the case of man and man, at special times and under incidental circumstances. The ass and the
acanthis are enemies; for the bird lives on thistles, and the ass browses on thistles when they are young and
tender. The anthus, the acanthis, and the aegithus are at enmity with one another; it is said that the blood of
the anthus will not intercommingle with the blood of the aegithus. The crow and the heron are friends, as also
are the sedge-bird and lark, the laedus and the celeus or green woodpecker; the woodpecker lives on the
banks of rivers and beside brakes, the laedus lives on rocks and bills, and is greatly attached to its
nesting-place. The piphinx, the harpe, and the kite are friends; as are the fox and the snake, for both burrow
underground; so also are the blackbird and the turtle-dove. The lion and the thos or civet are enemies, for
both are carnivorous and live on the same food. Elephants fight fiercely with one another, and stab one
another with their tusks; of two combatants the beaten one gets completely cowed, and dreads the sound of
his conqueror's voice. These animals differ from one another an extraordinary extent in the way of courage.
Indians employ these animals for war purposes, irrespective of sex; the females, however, are less in size and
much inferior in point of spirit. An elephant by pushing with his big tusks can batter down a wall, and will
butt with his forehead at a palm until he brings it down, when he stamps on it and lays it in orderly fashion on
the ground. Men hunt the elephant in the following way: they mount tame elephants of approved spirit and

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proceed in quest of wild animals; when they come up with these they bid the tame brutes to beat the wild
ones until they tire the latter completely. Hereupon the driver mounts a wild brute and guides him with the
application of his metal prong; after this the creature soon becomes tame, and obeys guidance. Now when the
driver is on their back they are all tractable, but after he has dismounted, some are tame and others vicious; in
the case of these latter, they tie their front-legs with ropes to keep them quiet. The animal is hunted whether
young or full grown.

Thus we see that in the case of the creatures above mentioned their mutual friendship or the is due to the food
they feed on and the life they lead.

Of fishes, such as swim in shoals together are friendly to one another; such as do not so swim are enemies.
Some fishes swarm during the spawning season; others after they have spawned. To state the matter
comprehensively, we may say that the following are shoaling fish: the tunny, the maenis, the sea-gudgeon,
the bogue, the horse-mackerel, the coracine, the synodon or dentex, the red mullet, the sphyraena, the
anthias, the eleginus, the atherine, the sarginus, the gar-fish, (the squid,) the rainbow-wrasse, the pelamyd,
the mackerel, the coly-mackerel. Of these some not only swim in shoals, but go in pairs inside the shoal; the
rest without exception swim in pairs, and only swim in shoals at certain periods: that is, as has been said,
when they are heavy with spawn or after they have spawned.

The basse and the grey mullet are bitter enemies, but they swarm together at certain times; for at times not
only do fishes of the same species swarm together, but also those whose feeding-grounds are identical or
adjacent, if the food-supply be abundant. The grey mullet is often found alive with its tail lopped off, and the
conger with all that part of its body removed that lies to the rear of the vent; in the case of the mullet the
injury is wrought by the basse, in that of the conger-eel by the muraena. There is war between the larger and
the lesser fishes: for the big fishes prey on the little ones. So much on the subject of marine animals.

The characters of animals, as has been observed, differ in respect to timidity, to gentleness, to courage, to
tameness, to intelligence, and to stupidity.

The sheep is said to be naturally dull and stupid. Of all quadrupeds it is the most foolish: it will saunter away
to lonely places with no object in view; oftentimes in stormy weather it will stray from shelter; if it be
overtaken by a snowstorm, it will stand still unless the shepherd sets it in motion; it will stay behind and
perish unless the shepherd brings up the rams; it will then follow home.

If you catch hold of a goat's beard at the extremity-the beard is of a substance resembling hair-all the
companion goats will stand stock still, staring at this particular goat in a kind of dumbfounderment.

You will have a warmer bed in amongst the goats than among the sheep, because the goats will be quieter and
will creep up towards you; for the goat is more impatient of cold than the sheep.

Shepherds train sheep to close in together at a clap of their hands, for if, when a thunderstorm comes on, a
ewe stays behind without closing in, the storm will kill it if it be with young; consequently if a sudden clap or
noise is made, they close in together within the sheepfold by reason of their training.

Even bulls, when they are roaming by themselves apart from the herd, are killed by wild animals.

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Sheep and goats lie crowded together, kin by kin. When the sun turns early towards its setting, the goats are
said to lie no longer face to face, but back to back.

Cattle at pasture keep together in their accustomed herds, and if one animal strays away the rest will follow;
consequently if the herdsmen lose one particular animal, they keep close watch on all the rest.

When mares with their colts pasture together in the same field, if one dam dies the others will take up the
rearing of the colt. In point of fact, the mare appears to be singularly prone by nature to maternal fondness; in
proof whereof a barren mare will steal the foal from its dam, will tend it with all the solicitude of a mother,
but, as it will be unprovided with mother's milk, its solicitude will prove fatal to its charge.

Among wild quadrupeds the hind appears to be pre-eminently intelligent; for example, in its habit of
bringing forth its young on the sides of public roads, where the fear of man forbids the approach of wild
animals. Again, after parturition, it first swallows the afterbirth, then goes in quest of the seseli shrub, and
after eating of it returns to its young. The mother takes its young betimes to her lair, so leading it to know its
place of refuge in time of danger; this lair is a precipitous rock, with only one approach, and there it is said to
hold its own against all comers. The male when it gets fat, which it does in a high degree in autumn,
disappears, abandoning its usual resorts, apparently under an idea that its fatness facilitates its capture. They
shed their horns in places difficult of access or discovery, whence the proverbial expression of 'the place
where the stag sheds his horns'; the fact being that, as having parted with their weapons, they take care not to
be seen. The saying is that no man has ever seen the animal's left horn; that the creature keeps it out of sight
because it possesses some medicinal property.

In their first year stags grow no horns, but only an excrescence indicating where horns will be, this
excrescence being short and thick. In their second year they grow their horns for the first time, straight in
shape, like pegs for hanging clothes on; and on this account they have an appropriate nickname. In the third
year the antlers are bifurcate; in the fourth year they grow trifurcate; and so they go on increasing in
complexity until the creature is six years old: after this they grow their horns without any specific
differentiation, so that you cannot by observation of them tell the animal's age. But the patriarchs of the herd
may be told chiefly by two signs; in the first place they have few teeth or none at all, and, in the second place,
they have ceased to grow the pointed tips to their antlers. The forward-pointing tips of the growing horns
(that is to say the brow antlers), with which the animal meets attack, are technically termed its 'defenders';
with these the patriarchs are unprovided, and their antlers merely grow straight upwards. Stags shed their
horns annually, in or about the month of May; after shedding, they conceal themselves, it is said, during the
daytime, and, to avoid the flies, hide in thick copses; during this time, until they have grown their horns, they
feed at night-time. The horns at first grow in a kind of skin envelope, and get rough by degrees; when they
reach their full size the animal basks in the sun, to mature and dry them. When they need no longer rub them
against tree-trunks they quit their hiding places, from a sense of security based upon the possession of arms
defensive and offensive. An Achaeine stag has been caught with a quantity of green ivy grown over its horns,
it having grown apparently, as on fresh green wood, when the horns were young and tender. When a stag is
stung by a venom-spider or similar insect, it gathers crabs and eats them; it is said to be a good thing for man
to drink the juice, but the taste is disagreeable. The hinds after parturition at once swallow the afterbirth, and
it is impossible to secure it, for the hind catches it before it falls to the ground: now this substance is supposed
to have medicinal properties. When hunted the creatures are caught by singing or pipe-playing on the part of
the hunters; they are so pleased with the music that they lie down on the grass. If there be two hunters, one
before their eyes sings or plays the pipe, the other keeps out of sight and shoots, at a signal given by the

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confederate. If the animal has its ears cocked, it can hear well and you cannot escape its ken; if its ears are
down, you can.

When bears are running away from their pursuers they push their cubs in front of them, or take them up and
carry them; when they are being overtaken they climb up a tree. When emerging from their winter-den, they
at once take to eating cuckoo-pint, as has been said, and chew sticks of wood as though they were cutting
teeth.

Many other quadrupeds help themselves in clever ways. Wild goats in Crete are said, when wounded by
arrows, to go in search of dittany, which is supposed to have the property of ejecting arrows in the body.
Dogs, when they are ill, eat some kind of grass and produce vomiting. The panther, after eating
panther's-bane, tries to find some human excrement, which is said to heal its pain. This panther's-bane kills
lions as well. Hunters hang up human excrement in a vessel attached to the boughs of a tree, to keep the
animal from straying to any distance; the animal meets its end in leaping up to the branch and trying to get at
the medicine. They say that the panther has found out that wild animals are fond of the scent it emits; that,
when it goes a-hunting, it hides itself; that the other animals come nearer and nearer, and that by this
stratagem it can catch even animals as swift of foot as stags.

The Egyptian ichneumon, when it sees the serpent called the asp, does not attack it until it has called in other
ichneumons to help; to meet the blows and bites of their enemy the assailants beplaster themselves with mud,
by first soaking in the river and then rolling on the ground.

When the crocodile yawns, the trochilus flies into his mouth and cleans his teeth. The trochilus gets his food
thereby, and the crocodile gets ease and comfort; it makes no attempt to injure its little friend, but, when it
wants it to go, it shakes its neck in warning, lest it should accidentally bite the bird.

The tortoise, when it has partaken of a snake, eats marjoram; this action has been actually observed. A man
saw a tortoise perform this operation over and over again, and every time it plucked up some marjoram go
back to partake of its prey; he thereupon pulled the marjoram up by the roots, and the consequence was the
tortoise died. The weasel, when it fights with a snake, first eats wild rue, the smell of which is noxious to the
snake. The dragon, when it eats fruit, swallows endive-juice; it has been seen in the act. Dogs, when they
suffer from worms, eat the standing corn. Storks, and all other birds, when they get a wound fighting, apply
marjoram to the place injured.

Many have seen the locust, when fighting with the snake get a tight hold of the snake by the neck. The weasel
has a clever way of getting the better of birds; it tears their throats open, as wolves do with sheep. Weasels
fight desperately with mice-catching snakes, as they both prey on the same animal.

In regard to the instinct of hedgehogs, it has been observed in many places that, when the wind is shifting
from north to south, and from south to north, they shift the outlook of their earth-holes, and those that are
kept in domestication shift over from one wall to the other. The story goes that a man in Byzantium got into
high repute for foretelling a change of weather, all owing to his having noticed this habit of the hedgehog.

The polecat or marten is about as large as the smaller breed of Maltese dogs. In the thickness of its fur, in its
look, in the white of its belly, and in its love of mischief, it resembles the weasel; it is easily tamed; from its
liking for honey it is a plague to bee-hives; it preys on birds like the cat. Its genital organ, as has been said,
consists of bone: the organ of the male is supposed to be a cure for strangury; doctors scrape it into powder,
and administer it in that form.

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In a general way in the lives of animals many resemblances to human life may be observed. Pre-eminent
intelligence will be seen more in small creatures than in large ones, as is exemplified in the case of birds by
the nest building of the swallow. In the same way as men do, the bird mixes mud and chaff together; if it runs
short of mud, it souses its body in water and rolls about in the dry dust with wet feathers; furthermore, just as
man does, it makes a bed of straw, putting hard material below for a foundation, and adapting all to suit its
own size. Both parents co-operate in the rearing of the young; each of the parents will detect, with practised
eye, the young one that has had a helping, and will take care it is not helped twice over; at first the parents
will rid the nest of excrement, but, when the young are grown, they will teach their young to shift their
position and let their excrement fall over the side of the nest.

Pigeons exhibit other phenomena with a similar likeness to the ways of humankind. In pairing the same male
and the same female keep together; and the union is only broken by the death of one of the two parties. At the
time of parturition in the female the sympathetic attentions of the male are extraordinary; if the female is
afraid on account of the impending parturition to enter the nest, the male will beat her and force her to come
in. When the young are born, he will take and masticate pieces of suitable food, will open the beaks of the
fledglings, and inject these pieces, thus preparing them betimes to take food. (When the male bird is about to
expel the the young ones from the nest he cohabits with them all.) As a general rule these birds show this
conjugal fidelity, but occasionally a female will cohabit with other than her mate. These birds are combative,
and quarrel with one another, and enter each other's nests, though this occurs but seldom; at a distance from
their nests this quarrelsomeness is less marked, but in the close neighbourhood of their nests they will fight
desperately. A peculiarity common to the tame pigeon, the ring-dove and the turtle-dove is that they do not
lean the head back when they are in the act of drinking, but only when they have fully quenched their thirst.
The turtle-dove and the ring-dove both have but one mate, and let no other come nigh; both sexes
co-operate in the process of incubation. It is difficult to distinguish between the sexes except by an
examination of their interiors. Ring-doves are long-lived; cases have been known where such birds were
twenty-five years old, thirty years old, and in some cases forty. As they grow old their claws increase in size,
and pigeon-fanciers cut the claws; as far as one can see, the birds suffer no other perceptible disfigurement
by their increase in age. Turtle-doves and pigeons that are blinded by fanciers for use as decoys, live for
eight years. Partridges live for about fifteen years. Ring-doves and turtle-doves always build their nests in
the same place year after year. The male, as a general rule, is more long-lived than the female; but in the case
of pigeons some assert that the male dies before the female, taking their inference from the statements of
persons who keep decoy-birds in captivity. Some declare that the male sparrow lives only a year, pointing to
the fact that early in spring the male sparrow has no black beard, but has one later on, as though the
blackbearded birds of the last year had all died out; they also say that the females are the longer lived, on the
grounds that they are caught in amongst the young birds and that their age is rendered manifest by the
hardness about their beaks. Turtle-doves in summer live in cold places, (and in warm places during the
winter); chaffinches affect warm habitations in summer and cold ones in winter.

Birds of a heavy build, such as quails, partridges, and the like, build no nests; indeed, where they are
incapable of flight, it would be of no use if they could do so. After scraping a hole on a level piece of
ground-and it is only in such a place that they lay their eggs-they cover it over with thorns and sticks for
security against hawks and eagles, and there lay their eggs and hatch them; after the hatching is over, they at
once lead the young out from the nest, as they are not able to fly afield for food for them. Quails and
partridges, like barn-door hens, when they go to rest, gather their brood under their wings. Not to be
discovered, as might be the case if they stayed long in one spot, they do not hatch the eggs where they laid
them. When a man comes by chance upon a young brood, and tries to catch them, the hen-bird rolls in front

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of the hunter, pretending to be lame: the man every moment thinks he is on the point of catching her, and so
she draws him on and on, until every one of her brood has had time to escape; hereupon she returns to the
nest and calls the young back. The partridge lays not less than ten eggs, and often lays as many as sixteen. As
has been observed, the bird has mischievous and deceitful habits. In the spring-time, a noisy scrimmage
takes place, out of which the male-birds emerge each with a hen. Owing to the lecherous nature of the bird,
and from a dislike to the hen sitting, the males, if they find any eggs, roll them over and over until they break
them in pieces; to provide against this the female goes to a distance and lays the eggs, and often, under the
stress of parturition, lays them in any chance spot that offers; if the male be near at hand, then to keep the
eggs intact she refrains from visiting them. If she be seen by a man, then, just as with her fledged brood, she
entices him off by showing herself close at his feet until she has drawn him to a distance. When the females
have run away and taken to sitting, the males in a pack take to screaming and fighting; when thus engaged,
they have the nickname of 'widowers'. The bird who is beaten follows his victor, and submits to be covered
by him only; and the beaten bird is covered by a second one or by any other, only clandestinely without the
victor's knowledge; this is so, not at all times, but at a particular season of the year, and with quails as well as
with partridges. A similar proceeding takes place occasionally with barn-door cocks: for in temples, where
cocks are set apart as dedicate without hens, they all as a matter of course tread any new-comer. Tame
partridges tread wild birds, pecket their heads, and treat them with every possible outrage. The leader of the
wild birds, with a counter-note of challenge, pushes forward to attack the decoy-bird, and after he has been
netted, another advances with a similar note. This is what is done if the decoy be a male; but if it be a female
that is the decoy and gives the note, and the leader of the wild birds give a counter one, the rest of the males
set upon him and chase him away from the female for making advances to her instead of to them; in
consequence of this the male often advances without uttering any cry, so that no other may hear him and
come and give him battle; and experienced fowlers assert that sometimes the male bird, when he approaches
the female, makes her keep silence, to avoid having to give battle to other males who might have heard him.
The partridge has not only the note here referred to, but also a thin shrill cry and other notes. Oftentimes the
hen-bird rises from off her brood when she sees the male showing attentions to the female decoy; she will
give the counter note and remain still, so as to be trodden by him and divert him from the decoy. The quail
and the partridge are so intent upon sexual union that they often come right in the way of the decoy-birds,
and not seldom alight upon their heads. So much for the sexual proclivities of the partridge, for the way in
which it is hunted, and the general nasty habits of the bird.

As has been said, quails and partridges build their nests upon the ground, and so also do some of the birds
that are capable of sustained flight. Further, for instance, of such birds, the lark and the woodcock, as well as
the quail, do not perch on a branch, but squat upon the ground.

The woodpecker does not squat on the ground, but pecks at the bark of trees to drive out from under it
maggots and gnats; when they emerge, it licks them up with its tongue, which is large and flat. It can run up
and down a tree in any way, even with the head downwards, like the gecko-lizard. For secure hold upon a
tree, its claws are better adapted than those of the daw; it makes its way by sticking these claws into the bark.
One species of woodpecker is smaller than a blackbird, and has small reddish speckles; a second species is
larger than the blackbird, and a third is not much smaller than a barn-door hen. It builds a nest on trees, as
has been said, on olive trees amongst others. It feeds on the maggots and ants that are under the bark: it is so
eager in the search for maggots that it is said sometimes to hollow a tree out to its downfall. A woodpecker
once, in course of domestication, was seen to insert an almond into a hole in a piece of timber, so that it
might remain steady under its pecking; at the third peck it split the shell of the fruit, and then ate the kernel.

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Many indications of high intelligence are given by cranes. They will fly to a great distance and up in the air,
to command an extensive view; if they see clouds and signs of bad weather they fly down again and remain
still. They, furthermore, have a leader in their flight, and patrols that scream on the confines of the flock so as
to be heard by all. When they settle down, the main body go to sleep with their heads under their wing,
standing first on one leg and then on the other, while their leader, with his head uncovered, keeps a sharp look
out, and when he sees anything of importance signals it with a cry.

Pelicans that live beside rivers swallow the large smooth mussel-shells: after cooking them inside the crop
that precedes the stomach, they spit them out, so that, now when their shells are open, they may pick the flesh
out and eat it.

Of wild birds, the nests are fashioned to meet the exigencies of existence and ensure the security of the
young. Some of these birds are fond of their young and take great care of them, others are quite the reverse;
some are clever in procuring subsistence, others are not so. Some of these birds build in ravines and clefts,
and on cliffs, as, for instance, the so-called charadrius, or stone-curlew; this bird is in no way noteworthy for
plumage or voice; it makes an appearance at night, but in the daytime keeps out of sight.

The hawk also builds in inaccessible places. Although a ravenous bird, it will never eat the heart of any bird it
catches; this has been observed in the case of the quail, the thrush, and other birds. They modify betimes their
method of hunting, for in summer they do not grab their prey as they do at other seasons.

Of the vulture, it is said that no one has ever seen either its young or its nest; on this account and on the
ground that all of a sudden great numbers of them will appear without any one being able to tell from whence
they come, Herodorus, the father of Bryson the sophist, says that it belongs to some distant and elevated land.
The reason is that the bird has its nest on inaccessible crags, and is found only in a few localities. The female
lays one egg as a rule, and two at the most.

Some birds live on mountains or in forests, as the hoopoe and the brenthus; this latter bird finds his food with
ease and has a musical voice. The wren lives in brakes and crevices; it is difficult of capture, keeps out of
sight, is gentle of disposition, finds its food with ease, and is something of a mechanic. It goes by the
nickname of 'old man' or 'king'; and the story goes that for this reason the eagle is at war with him.

Some birds live on the sea-shore, as the wagtail; the bird is of a mischievous nature, hard to capture, but
when caught capable of complete domestication; it is a cripple, as being weak in its hinder quarters.

Web-footed birds without exception live near the sea or rivers or pools, as they naturally resort to places
adapted to their structure. Several birds, however, with cloven toes live near pools or marshes, as, for
instance, the anthus lives by the side of rivers; the plumage of this bird is pretty, and it finds its food with
ease. The catarrhactes lives near the sea; when it makes a dive, it will keep under water for as long as it
would take a man to walk a furlong; it is less than the common hawk. Swans are web-footed, and live near
pools and marshes; they find their food with ease, are good-tempered, are fond of their young, and live to a
green old age. If the eagle attacks them they will repel the attack and get the better of their assailant, but they
are never the first to attack. They are musical, and sing chiefly at the approach of death; at this time they fly
out to sea, and men, when sailing past the coast of Libya, have fallen in with many of them out at sea singing

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in mournful strains, and have actually seen some of them dying.

The cymindis is seldom seen, as it lives on mountains; it is black in colour, and about the size of the hawk
called the 'dove-killer'; it is long and slender in form. The Ionians call the bird by this name; Homer in the
Iliad mentions it in the line:

Chalcis its name with those of heavenly birth,
But called Cymindis by the sons of earth.

The hybris, said by some to be the same as the eagle-owl, is never seen by daylight, as it is dim-sighted, but
during the night it hunts like the eagle; it will fight the eagle with such desperation that the two combatants
are often captured alive by shepherds; it lays two eggs, and, like others we have mentioned, it builds on rocks
and in caverns. Cranes also fight so desperately among themselves as to be caught when fighting, for they
will not leave off; the crane lays two eggs.

The jay has a great variety of notes: indeed, might almost say it had a different note for every day in the year.
It lays about nine eggs; builds its nest on trees, out of hair and tags of wool; when acorns are getting scarce, it
lays up a store of them in hiding.

It is a common story of the stork that the old birds are fed by their grateful progeny. Some tell a similar story
of the bee-eater, and declare that the parents are fed by their young not only when growing old, but at an
early period, as soon as the young are capable of feeding them; and the parent-birds stay inside the nest. The
under part of the bird's wing is pale yellow; the upper part is dark blue, like that of the halcyon; the tips of the
wings are About autumn-time it lays six or seven eggs, in overhanging banks where the soil is soft; there it
burrows into the ground to a depth of six feet.

The greenfinch, so called from the colour of its belly, is as large as a lark; it lays four or five eggs, builds its
nest out of the plant called comfrey, pulling it up by the roots, and makes an under-mattress to lie on of hair
and wool. The blackbird and the jay build their nests after the same fashion. The nest of the penduline tit
shows great mechanical skill; it has the appearance of a ball of flax, and the hole for entry is very small.

People who live where the bird comes from say that there exists a cinnamon bird which brings the cinnamon
from some unknown localities, and builds its nest out of it; it builds on high trees on the slender top branches.
They say that the inhabitants attach leaden weights to the tips of their arrows and therewith bring down the
nests, and from the intertexture collect the cinnamon sticks.

The halcyon is not much larger than the sparrow. Its colour is dark blue, green, and light purple; the whole
body and wings, and especially parts about the neck, show these colours in a mixed way, without any colour
being sharply defined; the beak is light green, long and slender: such, then, is the look of the bird. Its nest is
like sea-balls, i.e. the things that by the name of halosachne or seafoam, only the colour is not the same. The
colour of the nest is light red, and the shape is that of the long-necked gourd. The nests are larger than the
largest sponge, though they vary in size; they are roofed over, and great part of them is solid and great part
hollow. If you use a sharp knife it is not easy to cut the nest through; but if you cut it, and at the same time
bruise it with your hand, it will soon crumble to pieces, like the halosachne. The opening is small, just
enough for a tiny entrance, so that even if the nest upset the sea does not enter in; the hollow channels are like
those in sponges. It is not known for certain of what material the nest is constructed; it is possibly made of the
backbones of the gar-fish; for, by the way, the bird lives on fish. Besides living on the shore, it ascends

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fresh-water streams. It lays generally about five eggs, and lays eggs all its life long, beginning to do so at the
age of four months.

The hoopoe usually constructs its nest out of human excrement. It changes its appearance in summer and in
winter, as in fact do the great majority of wild birds. (The titmouse is said to lay a very large quantity of eggs:
next to the ostrich the blackheaded tit is said by some to lay the largest number of eggs; seventeen eggs have
been seen; it lays, however, more than twenty; it is said always to lay an odd number. Like others we have
mentioned, it builds in trees; it feeds on caterpillars.) A peculiarity of this bird and of the nightingale is that
the outer extremity of the tongue is not sharp-pointed.

The aegithus finds its food with ease, has many young, and walks with a limp. The golden oriole is apt at
learning, is clever at making a living, but is awkward in flight and has an ugly plumage.

The reed-warbler makes its living as easily as any other bird, sits in summer in a shady spot facing the wind,
in winter in a sunny and sheltered place among reeds in a marsh; it is small in size, with a pleasant note. The
so-called chatterer has a pleasant note, beautiful plumage, makes a living cleverly, and is graceful in form; it
appears to be alien to our country; at all events it is seldom seen at a distance from its own immediate home.

The crake is quarrelsome, clever at making a living, but in other ways an unlucky bird. The bird called sitta is
quarrelsome, but clever and tidy, makes its living with ease, and for its knowingness is regarded as uncanny;
it has a numerous brood, of which it is fond, and lives by pecking the bark of trees. The aegolius-owl flies by
night, is seldom seen by day; like others we have mentioned, it lives on cliffs or in caverns; it feeds on two
kinds of food; it has a strong hold on life and is full of resource. The tree-creeper is a little bird, of fearless
disposition; it lives among trees, feeds on caterpillars, makes a living with ease, and has a loud clear note.
The acanthis finds its food with difficulty; its plumage is poor, but its note is musical.

Of the herons, the ashen-coloured one, as has been said, unites with the female not without pain; it is full of
resource, carries its food with it, is eager in the quest of it, and works by day; its plumage is poor, and its
excrement is always wet. Of the other two species-for there are three in all-the white heron has handsome
plumage, unites without harm to itself with the female, builds a nest and lays its eggs neatly in trees; it
frequents marshes and lakes and Plains and meadow land. The speckled heron, which is nicknamed 'the
skulker', is said in folklore stories to be of servile origin, and, as its nickname implies, it is the laziest bird of
the three species. Such are the habits of herons. The bird that is called the poynx has this peculiarity, that it is
more prone than any other bird to peck at the eyes of an assailant or its prey; it is at war with the harpy, as the
two birds live on the same food.

There are two kinds of owsels; the one is black, and is found everywhere, the other is quite white, about the
same size as the other, and with the same pipe. This latter is found on Cyllene in Arcadia, and is found
nowhere else. The laius, or blue-thrush, is like the black owsel, only a little smaller; it lives on cliffs or on

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tile roofings; it has not a red beak as the black owsel has.

Of thrushes there are three species. One is the misselthrush; it feeds only on mistletoe and resin; it is about
the size of the jay. A second is the song-thrush; it has a sharp pipe, and is about the size of the owsel. There
is another species called the Illas; it is the smallest species of the three, and is less variegated in plumage than
the others.

There is a bird that lives on rocks, called the blue-bird from its colour. It is comparatively common in
Nisyros, and is somewhat less than the owsel and a little bigger than the chaffinch. It has large claws, and
climbs on the face of the rocks. It is steel-blue all over; its beak is long and slender; its legs are short, like
those of the woodpecker.

The oriole is yellow all over; it is not visible during winter, but puts in an appearance about the time of the
summer solstice, and departs again at the rising of Arcturus; it is the size of the turtle-dove. The so-called
soft-head (or shrike) always settles on one and the same branch, where it falls a prey to the birdcatcher. Its
head is big, and composed of gristle; it is a little smaller than the thrush; its beak is strong, small, and round;
it is ashen-coloured all over; is fleet of foot, but slow of wing. The bird-catcher usually catches it by help of
the owl.

There is also the pardalus. As a rule, it is seen in flocks and not singly; it is ashen-coloured all over, and
about the size of the birds last described; it is fleet of foot and strong of wing, and its pipe is loud and
high-pitched. The collyrion (or fieldfare) feeds on the same food as the owsel; is of the same size as the
above mentioned birds; and is trapped usually in the winter. All these birds are found at all times. Further,
there are the birds that live as a rule in towns, the raven and the crow. These also are visible at all seasons,
never shift their place of abode, and never go into winter quarters.

Of daws there are three species. One is the chough; it is as large as the crow, but has a red beak. There is
another, called the 'wolf; and further there is the little daw, called the 'railer'. There is another kind of daw
found in Lybia and Phrygia, which is web-footed.

Of larks there are two kinds. One lives on the ground and has a crest on its head; the other is gregarious, and
not sporadic like the first; it is, however, of the same coloured plumage, but is smaller, and has no crest; it is
an article of human food.

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The woodcock is caught with nets in gardens. It is about the size of a barn-door hen; it has a long beak, and
in plumage is like the francolin-partridge. It runs quickly, and is pretty easily domesticated. The starling is
speckled; it is of the same size as the owsel.

Of the Egyptian ibis there are two kinds, the white and the black. The white ones are found over Egypt,
excepting in Pelusium; the black ones are found in Pelusium, and nowhere else in Egypt.

Of the little horned owls there are two kinds, and one is visible at all seasons, and for that reason has the
nickname of ' all- the-y ear-round owl'; it is not sufficiently palatable to come to table; another species makes
its appearance sometimes in the autumn, is seen for a single day or at the most for two days, and is regarded
as a table delicacy; it scarcely differs from the first species save only in being fatter; it has no note, but the
other species has. With regard to their origin, nothing is known from ocular observation; the only fact known
for certain is that they are first seen when a west wind is blowing.

The cuckoo, as has been said elsewhere, makes no nest, but deposits its eggs in an alien nest, generally in the
nest of the ring-dove, or on the ground in the nest of the hypolais or lark, or on a tree in the nest of the green
linnet, it lays only one egg and does not hatch it itself, but the mother-bird in whose nest it has deposited it
hatches and rears it; and, as they say, this mother bird, when the young cuckoo has grown big, thrusts her
own brood out of the nest and lets them perish; others say that this mother-bird kills her own brood and gives
them to the alien to devour, despising her own young owing to the beauty of the cuckoo. Personal observers
agree in telling most of these stories, but are not in agreement as to the instruction of the young. Some say
that the mother-cuckoo comes and devours the brood of the rearing mother; others say that the young cuckoo
from its superior size snaps up the food brought before the smaller brood have a chance, and that in
consequence the smaller brood die of hunger; others say that, by its superior strength, it actually kills the
other ones whilst it is being reared up with them. The cuckoo shows great sagacity in the disposal of its
progeny; the fact is, the mother cuckoo is quite conscious of her own cowardice and of the fact that she could
never help her young one in an emergency, and so, for the security of the young one, she makes of him a
supposititious child in an alien nest. The truth is, this bird is pre-eminent among birds in the way of
cowardice; it allows itself to be pecked at by little birds, and flies away from their attacks.

It has already been stated that the footless bird, which some term the cypselus, resembles the swallow;
indeed, it is not easy to distinguish between the two birds, excepting in the fact that the cypselus has feathers
on the shank. These birds rear their young in long cells made of mud, and furnished with a hole just big
enough for entry and exit; they build under cover of some roofing-under a rock or in a cavern-for protection
against animals and men.

The so-called goat-sucker lives on mountains; it is a little larger than the owsel, and less than the cuckoo; it
lays two eggs, or three at the most, and is of a sluggish disposition. It flies up to the she-goat and sucks its
milk, from which habit it derives its name; it is said that, after it has sucked the teat of the animal, the teat

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dries up and the animal goes blind. It is dim-sighted in the day-time, but sees well enough by night.

In narrow circumscribed districts where the food would be insufficient for more birds than two, ravens are
only found in isolated pairs; when their young are old enough to fly, the parent couple first eject them from
the nest, and by and by chase them from the neighbourhood. The raven lays four or five eggs. About the time
when the mercenaries under Medius were slaughtered at Pharsalus, the districts about Athens and the
Peloponnese were left destitute of ravens, from which it would appear that these birds have some means of
intercommunicating with one another.

Of eagles there are several species. One of them, called 'the white-tailed eagle', is found on low lands, in
groves, and in the neighbourhood of cities; some call it the 'heron-killer'. It is bold enough to fly to
mountains and the interior of forests. The other eagles seldom visit groves or low-lying land. There is
another species called the 'plangus'; it ranks second in point of size and strength; it lives in mountain combes
and glens, and by marshy lakes, and goes by the name of 'duck-killer' and 'swart-eagle.' It is mentioned by
Homer in his account of the visit made by Priam to the tent of Achilles. There is another species with black
Plumage, the smallest but boldest of all the kinds. It dwells on mountains or in forests, and is called 'the
black-eagle' or 'the hare-killer'; it is the only eagle that rears its young and thoroughly takes them out with it.
It is swift of flight, is neat and tidy in its habits, too proud for jealousy, fearless, quarrelsome; it is also silent,
for it neither whimpers nor screams. There is another species, the percnopterus, very large, with white head,
very short wings, long tail-feathers, in appearance like a vulture. It goes by the name of 'mountain-stork' or
'half-eagle'. It lives in groves; has all the bad qualities of the other species, and none of the good ones; for it
lets itself be chased and caught by the raven and the other birds. It is clumsy in its movements, has difficulty
in procuring its food, preys on dead animals, is always hungry, and at all times whining and screaming. There
is another species, called the 'sea-eagle' or 'osprey'. This bird has a large thick neck, curved wings, and broad
tailfeathers; it lives near the sea, grasps its prey with its talons, and often, from inability to carry it, tumbles
down into the water. There is another species called the 'true-bred'; people say that these are the only
true-bred birds to be found, that all other birds-eagles, hawks, and the smallest birds-are all spoilt by the
interbreeding of different species. The true-bred eagle is the largest of all eagles; it is larger than the phene;
is half as large again as the ordinary eagle, and has yellow plumage; it is seldom seen, as is the case with the
so-called cymindis. The time for an eagle to be on the wing in search of prey is from midday to evening; in
the morning until the market-hour it remains on the nest. In old age the upper beak of the eagle grows
gradually longer and more crooked, and the bird dies eventually of starvation; there is a folklore story that the
eagle is thus punished because it once was a man and refused entertainment to a stranger. The eagle puts
aside its superfluous food for its young; for owing to the difficulty in procuring food day by day, it at times
may come back to the nest with nothing. If it catch a man prowling about in the neighbourhood of its nest, it
will strike him with its wings and scratch him with its talons. The nest is built not on low ground but on an
elevated spot, generally on an inaccessible ledge of a cliff; it does, however, build upon a tree. The young are
fed until they can fly; hereupon the parent-birds topple them out of the nest, and chase them completely out
of the locality. The fact is that a pair of eagles demands an extensive space for its maintenance, and
consequently cannot allow other birds to quarter themselves in close neighbourhood. They do not hunt in the
vicinity of their nest, but go to a great distance to find their prey. When the eagle has captured a beast, it puts
it down without attempting to carry it off at once; if on trial it finds the burden too heavy, it will leave it.
When it has spied a hare, it does not swoop on it at once, but lets it go on into the open ground; neither does it
descend to the ground at one swoop, but goes gradually down from higher flights to lower and lower: these
devices it adopts by way of security against the stratagem of the hunter. It alights on high places by reason of
the difficulty it experiences in soaring up from the level ground; it flies high in the air to have the more

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extensive view; from its high flight it is said to be the only bird that resembles the gods. Birds of prey, as a
rule, seldom alight upon rock, as the crookedness of their talons prevents a stable footing on hard stone. The
eagle hunts hares, fawns, foxes, and in general all such animals as he can master with ease. It is a long-lived
bird, and this fact might be inferred from the length of time during which the same nest is maintained in its
place.

In Scythia there is found a bird as large as the great bustard. The female lays two eggs, but does not hatch
them, but hides them in the skin of a hare or fox and leaves them there, and, when it is not in quest of prey, it
keeps a watch on them on a high tree; if any man tries to climb the tree, it fights and strikes him with its
wing, just as eagles do.

The owl and the night-raven and all the birds see poorly in the daytime seek their prey in the night, but not
all the night through, but at evening and dawn. Their food consists of mice, lizards, chafers and the like little
creatures. The so-called phene, or lammergeier, is fond of its young, provides its food with ease, fetches food
to its nest, and is of a kindly disposition. It rears its own young and those of the eagle as well; for when the
eagle ejects its young from the nest, this bird catches them up as they fall and feeds them. For the eagle, by
the way, ejects the young birds prematurely, before they are able to feed themselves, or to fly. It appears to do
so from jealousy; for it is by nature jealous, and is so ravenous as to grab furiously at its food; and when it
does grab at its food, it grabs it in large morsels. It is accordingly jealous of the young birds as they approach
maturity, since they are getting good appetites, and so it scratches them with its talons. The young birds fight
also with one another, to secure a morsel of food or a comfortable position, whereupon the mother-bird beats
them and ejects them from the nest; the young ones scream at this treatment, and the phene hearing them
catches them as they fall. The phene has a film over its eyes and sees badly, but the sea-eagle is very
keen-sighted, and before its young are fledged tries to make them stare at the sun, and beats the one that
refuses to do so, and twists him back in the sun's direction; and if one of them gets watery eyes in the process,
it kills him, and rears the other. It lives near the sea, and feeds, as has been said, on sea-birds; when in
pursuit of them it catches them one by one, watching the moment when the bird rises to the surface from its
dive. When a sea-bird, emerging from the water, sees the sea-eagle, he in terror dives under, intending to
rise again elsewhere; the eagle, however, owing to its keenness of vision, keeps flying after him until he
either drowns the bird or catches him on the surface. The eagle never attacks these birds when they are in a
swarm, for they keep him off by raising a shower of water-drops with their wings.

The cepphus is caught by means of sea-foam; the bird snaps at the foam, and consequently fishermen catch it
by sluicing with showers of sea-water. These birds grow to be plump and fat; their flesh has a good odour,
excepting the hinder quarters, which smell of shoreweed.

Of hawks, the strongest is the buzzard; the next in point of courage is the merlin; and the circus ranks third;
other diverse kinds are the asterias, the pigeon-hawk, and the pternis; the broaded-winged hawk is called the
half-buzzard; others go by the name of hobby-hawk, or sparrow-hawk, or 'smooth-feathered', or
'toad-catcher'. Birds of this latter species find their food with very little difficulty, and flutter along the
ground. Some say that there are ten species of hawks, all differing from one another. One hawk, they say, will
strike and grab the pigeon as it rests on the ground, but never touch it while it is in flight; another hawk

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attacks the pigeon when it is perched upon a tree or any elevation, but never touches it when it is on the
ground or on the wing; other hawks attack their prey only when it is on the wing. They say that pigeons can
distinguish the various species: so that, when a hawk is an assailant, if it be one that attacks its prey when the
prey is on the wing, the pigeon will sit still; if it be one that attacks sitting prey, the pigeon will rise up and fly
away.

In Thrace, in the district sometimes called that of Cedripolis, men hunt for little birds in the marshes with the
aid of hawks. The men with sticks in their hands go beating at the reeds and brushwood to frighten the birds
out, and the hawks show themselves overhead and frighten them down. The men then strike them with their
sticks and capture them. They give a portion of their booty to the hawks; that is, they throw some of the birds
up in the air, and the hawks catch them.

In the neighbourhood of Lake Maeotis, it is said, wolves act in concert with the fishermen, and if the
fishermen decline to share with them, they tear their nets in pieces as they lie drying on the shore of the lake.

So much for the habits of birds.

In marine creatures, also, one In marine creatures, also, one may observe many ingenious devices adapted to
the circumstances of their lives. For the accounts commonly given of the so-called fishing-frog are quite
true; as are also those given of the torpedo. The fishing-frog has a set of filaments that project in front of its
eyes; they are long and thin like hairs, and are round at the tips; they lie on either side, and are used as baits.
Accordingly, when the animal stirs up a place full of sand and mud and conceals itself therein, it raises the
filaments, and, when the little fish strike against them, it draws them in underneath into its mouth. The
torpedo narcotizes the creatures that it wants to catch, overpowering them by the power of shock that is
resident in its body, and feeds upon them; it also hides in the sand and mud, and catches all the creatures that
swim in its way and come under its narcotizing influence. This phenomenon has been actually observed in
operation. The sting-ray also conceals itself, but not exactly in the same way. That the creatures get their
living by this means is obvious from the fact that, whereas they are peculiarly inactive, they are often caught
with mullets in their interior, the swiftest of fishes. Furthermore, the fishing-frog is unusually thin when he is
caught after losing the tips of his filaments, and the torpedo is known to cause a numbness even in human
beings. Again, the hake, the ray, the flat-fish, and the angelfish burrow in the sand, and after concealing
themselves angle with the filaments on their mouths, that fishermen call their fishing-rods, and the little
creatures on which they feed swim up to the filaments taking them for bits of sea-weed, such as they feed
upon.

Wherever an anthias-fish is seen, there will be no dangerous creatures in the vicinity, and sponge-divers will
dive in security, and they call these signal-fishes 'holy-fish'. It is a sort of perpetual coincidence, like the fact
that wherever snails are present you may be sure there is neither pig nor partridge in the neighbourhood; for
both pig and partridge eat up the snails.

The sea-serpent resembles the conger in colour and shape, but is of lesser bulk and more rapid in its
movements. If it be caught and thrown away, it will bore a hole with its snout and burrow rapidly in the sand;
its snout, by the way, is sharper than that of ordinary serpents. The so-called sea-scolopendra, after
swallowing the hook, turns itself inside out until it ejects it, and then it again turns itself outside in. The
sea-scolopendra, like the land-scolopendra, will come to a savoury bait; the creature does not bite with its
teeth, but stings by contact with its entire body, like the so-called sea-nettle. The so-called fox-shark, when
it finds it has swallowed the hook, tries to get rid of it as the scolopendra does, but not in the same way; in
other words, it runs up the fishing-line, and bites it off short; it is caught in some districts in deep and rapid

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waters, with night-lines.

The bonitos swarm together when they espy a dangerous creature, and the largest of them swim round it, and
if it touches one of the shoal they try to repel it; they have strong teeth. Amongst other large fish, a
lamia-shark, after falling in amongst a shoal, has been seen to be covered with wounds.

Of river-fish, the male of the sheat-fish is remarkably attentive to the young. The female after parturition
goes away; the male stays and keeps on guard where the spawn is most abundant, contenting himself with
keeping off all other little fishes that might steal the spawn or fry, and this he does for forty or fifty days, until
the young are sufficiently grown to make away from the other fishes for themselves. The fishermen can tell
where he is on guard: for, in warding off the little fishes, he makes a rush in the water and gives utterance to a
kind of muttering noise. He is so earnest in the performance of his parental duties that the fishermen at times,
if the eggs be attached to the roots of water-plants deep in the water, drag them into as shallow a place as
possible; the male fish will still keep by the young, and, if it so happen, will be caught by the hook when
snapping at the little fish that come by; if, however, he be sensible by experience of the danger of the hook,
he will still keep by his charge, and with his extremely strong teeth will bite the hook in pieces.

All fishes, both those that wander about and those that are stationary, occupy the districts where they were
born or very similar places, for their natural food is found there. Carnivorous fish wander most; and all fish
are carnivorous with the exception of a few, such as the mullet, the saupe, the red mullet, and the chalcis. The
so-called pholis gives out a mucous discharge, which envelops the creature in a kind of nest. Of shell-fish,
and fish that are finless, the scallop moves with greatest force and to the greatest distance, impelled along by
some internal energy; the murex or purple-fish, and others that resemble it, move hardly at all. Out of the
lagoon of Pyrrha all the fishes swim in winter-time, except the sea-gudgeon; they swim out owing to the
cold, for the narrow waters are colder than the outer sea, and on the return of the early summer they all swim
back again. In the lagoon no scarus is found, nor thritta, nor any other species of the spiny fish, no spotted
dogfish, no spiny dogfish, no sea-crawfish, no octopus either of the common or the musky kinds, and certain
other fish are also absent; but of fish that are found in the lagoon the white gudgeon is not a marine fish. Of
fishes the oviparous are in their prime in the early summer until the spawning time; the viviparous in the
autumn, as is also the case with the mullet, the red mullet, and all such fish. In the neighbourhood of Lesbos,
the fishes of the outer sea, or of the lagoon, bring forth their eggs or young in the lagoon; sexual union takes
place in the autumn, and parturition in the spring. With fishes of the cartilaginous kind, the males and females
swarm together in the autumn for the sake of sexual union; in the early summer they come swimming in, and
keep apart until after parturition; the two sexes are often taken linked together in sexual union.

Of molluscs the sepia is the most cunning, and is the only species that employs its dark liquid for the sake of
concealment as well as from fear: the octopus and calamary make the discharge solely from fear. These
creatures never discharge the pigment in its entirety; and after a discharge the pigment accumulates again.
The sepia, as has been said, often uses its colouring pigment for concealment; it shows itself in front of the
pigment and then retreats back into it; it also hunts with its long tentacles not only little fishes, but oftentimes
even mullets. The octopus is a stupid creature, for it will approach a man's hand if it be lowered in the water;
but it is neat and thrifty in its habits: that is, it lays up stores in its nest, and, after eating up all that is eatable,
it ejects the shells and sheaths of crabs and shell-fish, and the skeletons of little fishes. It seeks its prey by so
changing its colour as to render it like the colour of the stones adjacent to it; it does so also when alarmed. By
some the sepia is said to perform the same trick; that is, they say it can change its colour so as to make it
resemble the colour of its habitat. The only fish that can do this is the angelfish, that is, it can change its
colour like the octopus. The octopus as a rule does not live the year out. It has a natural tendency to run off
into liquid; for, if beaten and squeezed, it keeps losing substance and at last disappears. The female after
parturition is peculiarly subject to this colliquef action; it becomes stupid; if tossed about by waves, it submits
impassively; a man, if he dived, could catch it with the hand; it gets covered over with slime, and makes no
effort to catch its wonted prey. The male becomes leathery and clammy. As a proof that they do not live into

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a second year there is the fact that, after the birth of the little octopuses in the late summer or beginning of
autumn, it is seldom that a large-sized octopus is visible, whereas a little before this time of year the creature
is at its largest. After the eggs are laid, they say that both the male and the female grow so old and feeble that
they are preyed upon by little fish, and with ease dragged from their holes; and that this could not have been
done previously; they say also that this is not the case with the small and young octopus, but that the young
creature is much stronger than the grown-up one. Neither does the sepia live into a second year. The octopus
is the only mollusc that ventures on to dry land; it walks by preference on rough ground; it is firm all over
when you squeeze it, excepting in the neck. So much for the mollusca.

It is also said that they make a thin rough shell about them like a hard sheath, and that this is made larger and
larger as the animal grows larger, and that it comes out of the sheath as though out of a den or dwelling place.

The nautilus (or argonaut) is a poulpe or octopus, but one peculiar both in its nature and its habits. It rises up
from deep water and swims on the surface; it rises with its shell down-turned in order that it may rise the
more easily and swim with it empty, but after reaching the surface it shifts the position of the shell. In
between its feelers it has a certain amount of web-growth, resembling the substance between the toes of
web-footed birds; only that with these latter the substance is thick, while with the nautilus it is thin and like a
spider's web. It uses this structure, when a breeze is blowing, for a sail, and lets down some of its feelers
alongside as rudder-oars. If it be frightened it fills its shell with water and sinks. With regard to the mode of
generation and the growth of the shell knowledge from observation is not yet satisfactory; the shell, however,
does not appear to be there from the beginning, but to grow in their cases as in that of other shell-fish; neither
is it ascertained for certain whether the animal can live when stripped of the shell.

Of all insects, one may also say of all living creatures, the most industrious are the ant, the bee, the hornet,
the wasp, and in point of fact all creatures akin to these; of spiders some are more skilful and more
resourceful than others. The way in which ants work is open to ordinary observation; how they all march one
after the other when they are engaged in putting away and storing up their food; all this may be seen, for they
carry on their work even during bright moonlight nights.

Of spiders and phalangia there are many species. Of the venomous phalangia there are two; one that
resembles the so-called wolf-spider, small, speckled, and tapering to a point; it moves with leaps, from
which habit it is nicknamed 'the flea': the other kind is large, black in colour, with long front legs; it is heavy
in its movements, walks slowly, is not very strong, and never leaps. (Of all the other species wherewith
poison-vendors supply themselves, some give a weak bite, and others never bite at all. There is another kind,
comprising the so-called wolf-spiders.) Of these spiders the small one weaves no web, and the large weaves
a rude and poorly built one on the ground or on dry stone walls. It always builds its web over hollow places
inside of which it keeps a watch on the end-threads, until some creature gets into the web and begins to
struggle, when out the spider pounces. The speckled kind makes a little shabby web under trees.

There is a third species of this animal, preeminently clever and artistic. It first weaves a thread stretching to
all the exterior ends of the future web; then from the centre, which it hits upon with great accuracy, it
stretches the warp; on the warp it puts what corresponds to the woof, and then weaves the whole together. It
sleeps and stores its food away from the centre, but it is at the centre that it keeps watch for its prey. Then,
when any creature touches the web and the centre is set in motion, it first ties and wraps the creature round
with threads until it renders it helpless, then lifts it and carries it off, and, if it happens to be hungry, sucks out
the life-juices — for that is the way it feeds; but, if it be not hungry, it first mends any damage done and then

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hastens again to its quest of prey. If something comes meanwhile into the net, the spider at first makes for the
centre, and then goes back to its entangled prey as from a fixed starting point. If any one injures a portion of
the web, it recommences weaving at sunrise or at sunset, because it is chiefly at these periods that creatures
are caught in the web. It is the female that does the weaving and the hunting, but the male takes a share of the
booty captured.

Of the skilful spiders, weaving a substantial web, there are two kinds, the larger and the smaller. The one has
long legs and keeps watch while swinging downwards from the web: from its large size it cannot easily
conceal itself, and so it keeps underneath, so that its prey may not be frightened off, but may strike upon the
web's upper surface; the less awkwardly formed one lies in wait on the top, using a little hole for a
lurking-place. Spiders can spin webs from the time of their birth, not from their interior as a superfluity or
excretion, as Democritus avers, but off their body as a kind of tree-bark, like the creatures that shoot out with
their hair, as for instance the porcupine. The creature can attack animals larger than itself, and enwrap them
with its threads: in other words, it will attack a small lizard, run round and draw threads about its mouth until
it closes the mouth up; then it comes up and bites it.

So much for the spider. Of insects, there is a genus that has no one name that comprehends all the species,
though all the species are akin to one another in form; it consists of all the insects that construct a
honeycomb: to wit, the bee, and all the insects that resemble it in form.

There are nine varieties, of which six are gregarious-the bee, the king-bee, the drone bee, the annual wasp,
and, furthermore, the anthrene (or hornet), and the tenthredo (or ground-wasp); three are solitary-the smaller
siren, of a dun colour, the larger siren, black and speckled, and the third, the largest of all, that is called the
humble-bee. Now ants never go a-hunting, but gather up what is ready to hand; the spider makes nothing,
and lays up no store, but simply goes a-hunting for its food; while the bee — for we shall by and by treat of
the nine varieties — does not go a-hunting, but constructs its food out of gathered material and stores it away,
for honey is the bee's food. This fact is shown by the beekeepers' attempt to remove the combs; for the bees,
when they are fumigated, and are suffering great distress from the process, then devour the honey most
ravenously, whereas at other times they are never observed to be so greedy, but apparently are thrifty and
disposed to lay by for their future sustenance. They have also another food which is called bee-bread; this is
scarcer than honey and has a sweet figlike taste; this they carry as they do the wax on their legs.

Very remarkable diversity is observed in their methods of working and their general habits. When the hive
has been delivered to them clean and empty, they build their waxen cells, bringing in the juice of all kinds of
flowers and the 'tears' or exuding sap of trees, such as willows and elms and such others as are particularly
given to the exudation of gum. With this material they besmear the groundwork, to provide against attacks of
other creatures; the bee-keepers call this stuff 'stop-wax'. They also with the same material narrow by
side-building the entrances to the hive if they are too wide. They first build cells for themselves; then for the
so-called kings and the drones; for themselves they are always building, for the kings only when the brood of
young is numerous, and cells for the drones they build if a superabundance of honey should suggest their
doing so. They build the royal cells next to their own, and they are of small bulk; the drones' cells they build
near by, and these latter are less in bulk than the bee's cells.

They begin building the combs downwards from the top of the hive, and go down and down building many
combs connected together until they reach the bottom. The cells, both those for the honey and those also for
the grubs, are double-doored; for two cells are ranged about a single base, one pointing one way and one the
other, after the manner of a double (or hour-glass-shaped) goblet. The cells that lie at the commencement of
the combs and are attached to the hives, to the extent of two or three concentric circular rows, are small and

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devoid of honey; the cells that are well filled with honey are most thoroughly luted with wax. At the entry to
the hive the aperture of the doorway is smeared with mitys; this substance is a deep black, and is a sort of
dross or residual by-product of wax; it has a pungent odour, and is a cure for bruises and suppurating sores.
The greasy stuff that comes next is pitch-wax; it has a less pungent odour and is less medicinal than the
mitys. Some say that the drones construct combs by themselves in the same hive and in the same comb that
they share with the bees; but that they make no honey, but subsist, they and their grubs also, on the honey
made by the bees. The drones, as a rule, keep inside the hive; when they go out of doors, they soar up in the
air in a stream, whirling round and round in a kind of gymnastic exercise; when this is over, they come inside
the hive and feed to repletion ravenously. The kings never quit the hive, except in conjunction with the entire
swarm, either for food or for any other reason. They say that, if a young swarm go astray, it will turn back
upon its route and by the aid of scent seek out its leader. It is said that if he is unable to fly he is carried by the
swarm, and that if he dies the swarm perishes; and that, if this swarm outlives the king for a while and
constructs combs, no honey is produced and the bees soon die out.

Bees scramble up the stalks of flowers and rapidly gather the bees-wax with their front legs; the front legs
wipe it off on to the middle legs, and these pass it on to the hollow curves of the hind-legs; when thus laden,
they fly away home, and one may see plainly that their load is a heavy one. On each expedition the bee does
not fly from a flower of one kind to a flower of another, but flies from one violet, say, to another violet, and
never meddles with another flower until it has got back to the hive; on reaching the hive they throw off their
load, and each bee on his return is accompanied by three or four companions. One cannot well tell what is the
substance they gather, nor the exact process of their work. Their mode of gathering wax has been observed on
olive-trees, as owing to the thickness of the leaves the bees remain stationary for a considerable while. After
this work is over, they attend to the grubs. There is nothing to prevent grubs, honey, and drones being all
found in one and the same comb. As long as the leader is alive, the drones are said to be produced apart by
themselves; if he be no longer living, they are said to be reared by the bees in their own cells, and under these
circumstances to become more spirited: for this reason they are called 'sting-drones', not that they really have
stings, but that they have the wish without the power, to use such weapons. The cells for the drones are larger
than the others; sometimes the bees construct cells for the drones apart, but usually they put them in amongst
their own; and when this is the case the bee-keepers cut the drone-cells out of the combs.

There are several species of bees, as has been said; two of 'kings', the better kind red, the other black and
variegated, and twice as big as the working-bee. The best workingbee is small, round, and speckled: another
kind is long and like an anthrene wasp; another kind is what is called the robber-bee, black and flat-bellied;
then there is the drone, the largest of all, but devoid of sting, and lazy. There is a difference between the
progeny of bees that inhabit cultivated land and of those from the mountains: the forest-bees are more
shaggy, smaller, more industrious and more fierce. Working-bees make their combs all even, with the
superficial covering quite smooth. Each comb is of one kind only: that is, it contains either bees only, or
grubs only, or drones only; if it happen, however, that they make in one and the same comb all these kinds of
cells, each separate kind will be built in a continuous row right through. The long bees build uneven combs,
with the lids of the cells protuberant, like those of the anthrene; grubs and everything else have no fixed
places, but are put anywhere; from these bees come inferior kings, a large quantity of drones, and the
so-called robber-bee; they produce either no honey at all, or honey in very small quantities. Bees brood over
the combs and so mature them; if they fail to do so, the combs are said to go bad and to get covered with a
sort of spider's web. If they can keep brooding over the part undamaged, the damaged part simply eats itself
away; if they cannot so brood, the entire comb perishes; in the damaged combs small worms are engendered,
which take on wings and fly away. When the combs keep settling down, the bees restore the level surface,
and put props underneath the combs to give themselves free passage-room; for if such free passage be
lacking they cannot brood, and the cobwebs come on. When the robber-bee and the drone appear, not only
do they do no work themselves, but they actually damage the work of the other bees; if they are caught in the
act, they are killed by the working-bees. These bees also kill without mercy most of their kings, and
especially kings of the inferior sort; and this they do for fear a multiplicity of kings should lead to a

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dismemberment of the hive. They kill them especially when the hive is deficient in grubs, and a swarm is not
intended to take place; under these circumstances they destroy the cells of the kings if they have been
prepared, on the ground that these kings are always ready to lead out swarms. They destroy also the combs of
the drones if a failure in the supply be threatening and the hive runs short of provisions; under such
circumstances they fight desperately with all who try to take their honey, and eject from the hive all the
resident drones; and oftentimes the drones are to be seen sitting apart in the hive. The little bees fight
vigorously with the long kind, and try to banish them from the hives; if they succeed, the hive will be
unusually productive, but if the bigger bees get left mistresses of the field they pass the time in idleness, and
no good at all but die out before the autumn. Whenever the working-bees kill an enemy they try to do so out
of doors; and whenever one of their own body dies, they carry the dead bee out of doors also. The so-called
robber-bees spoil their own combs, and, if they can do so unnoticed, enter and spoil the combs of other bees;
if they are caught in the act they are put to death. It is no easy task for them to escape detection, for there are
sentinels on guard at every entry; and, even if they do escape detection on entering, afterwards from a surfeit
of food they cannot fly, but go rolling about in front of the hive, so that their chances of escape are small
indeed. The kings are never themselves seen outside the hive except with a swarm in flight: during which
time all the other bees cluster around them. When the flight of a swarm is imminent, a monotonous and quite
peculiar sound made by all the bees is heard for several days, and for two or three days in advance a few bees
are seen flying round the hive; it has never as yet been ascertained, owing to the difficulty of the observation,
whether or no the king is among these. When they have swarmed, they fly away and separate off to each of
the kings; if a small swarm happens to settle near to a large one, it will shift to join this large one, and if the
king whom they have abandoned follows them, they put him to death. So much for the quitting of the hive
and the swarmflight. Separate detachments of bees are told off for diverse operations; that is, some carry
flower-produce, others carry water, others smooth and arrange the combs. A bee carries water when it is
rearing grubs. No bee ever settles on the flesh of any creature, or ever eats animal food. They have no fixed
date for commencing work; but when their provender is forthcoming and they are in comfortable trim, and by
preference in summer, they set to work, and when the weather is fine they work incessantly.

The bee, when quite young and in fact only three days old, after shedding its chrysalis-case, begins to work if
it be well fed. When a swarm is settling, some bees detach themselves in search of food and return back to the
swarm. In hives that are in good condition the production of young bees is discontinued only for the forty
days that follow the winter solstice. When the grubs are grown, the bees put food beside them and cover them
with a coating of wax; and, as soon as the grub is strong enough, he of his own accord breaks the lid and
comes out. Creatures that make their appearance in hives and spoil the combs the working-bees clear out, but
the other bees from sheer laziness look with indifference on damage done to their produce. When the
bee-masters take out the combs, they leave enough food behind for winter use; if it be sufficient in quantity,
the occupants of the hive will survive; if it be insufficient, then, if the weather be rough, they die on the spot,
but if it be fair, they fly away and desert the hive. They feed on honey summer and winter; but they store up
another article of food resembling wax in hardness, which by some is called sandarace, or bee-bread. Their
worst enemies are wasps and the birds named titmice, and furthermore the swallow and the bee-eater. The
frogs in the marsh also catch them if they come in their way by the water-side, and for this reason
bee-keepers chase the frogs from the ponds from which the bees take water; they destroy also wasps' nests,
and the nests of swallows, in the neighbourhood of the hives, and also the nests of bee-eaters. Bees have fear
only of one another. They fight with one another and with wasps. Away from the hive they attack neither
their own species nor any other creature, but in the close proximity of the hive they kill whatever they get
hold of. Bees that sting die from their inability to extract the sting without at the same time extracting their
intestines. True, they often recover, if the person stung takes the trouble to press the sting out; but once it
loses its sting the bee must die. They can kill with their stings even large animals; in fact, a horse has been
known to have been stung to death by them. The kings are the least disposed to show anger or to inflict a
sting. Bees that die are removed from the hive, and in every way the creature is remarkable for its cleanly
habits; in point of fact, they often fly away to a distance to void their excrement because it is malodorous;
and, as has been said, they are annoyed by all bad smells and by the scent of perfumes, so much so that they

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sting people that use perfumes.

They perish from a number of accidental causes, and when their kings become too numerous and try each to
carry away a portion of the swarm.

The toad also feeds on bees; he comes to the doorway of the hive, puffs himself out as he sits on the watch,
and devours the creatures as they come flying out; the bees can in no way retaliate, but the bee-keeper makes
a point of killing him.

As for the class of bee that has been spoken of as inferior or good-for-nothing, and as constructing its combs
so roughly, some bee-keepers say that it is the young bees that act so from inexperience; and the bees of the
current year are termed young. The young bees do not sting as the others do; and it is for this reason that
swarms may be safely carried, as it is of young bees that they are composed. When honey runs short they
expel the drones, and the bee-keepers supply the bees with figs and sweet-tasting articles of food. The elder
bees do the indoor work, and are rough and hairy from staying indoors; the young bees do the outer carrying,
and are comparatively smooth. They kill the drones also when in their work they are confined for room; the
drones, by the way, live in the innermost recess of the hive. On one occasion, when a hive was in a poor
condition, some of the occupants assailed a foreign hive; proving victorious in a combat they took to carrying
off the honey; when the bee-keeper tried to kill them, the other bees came out and tried to beat off the enemy
but made no attempt to sting the man.

The diseases that chiefly attack prosperous hives are first of all the clerus-this consists in a growth of little
worms on the floor, from which, as they develop, a kind of cobweb grows over the entire hive, and the combs
decay; another diseased condition is indicated in a lassitude on the part of the bees and in malodorousness of
the hive. Bees feed on thyme; and the white thyme is better than the red. In summer the place for the hive
should be cool, and in winter warm. They are very apt to fall sick if the plant they are at work on be
mildewed. In a high wind they carry a stone by way of ballast to steady them. If a stream be near at hand,
they drink from it and from it only, but before they drink they first deposit their load; if there be no water near
at hand, they disgorge their honey as they drink elsewhere, and at once make off to work. There are two
seasons for making honey, spring and autumn; the spring honey is sweeter, whiter, and in every way better
than the autumn honey. Superior honey comes from fresh comb, and from young shoots; the red honey is
inferior, and owes its inferiority to the comb in which it is deposited, just as wine is apt to be spoiled by its
cask; consequently, one should have it looked to and dried. When the thyme is in flower and the comb is full,
the honey does not harden. The honey that is golden in hue is excellent. White honey does not come from
thyme pure and simple; it is good as a salve for sore eyes and wounds. Poor honey always floats on the
surface and should be skimmed off; the fine clear honey rests below. When the floral world is in full bloom,
then they make wax; consequently you must then take the wax out of the hive, for they go to work on new
wax at once. The flowers from which they gather honey are as follows: the spindle-tree, the melilot-clover,
king's-spear, myrtle, flowering-reed, withy, and broom. When they work at thyme, they mix in water before
sealing up the comb. As has been already stated, they all either fly to a distance to discharge their excrement
or make the discharge into one single comb. The little bees, as has been said, are more industrious than the
big ones; their wings are battered; their colour is black, and they have a burnt-up aspect. Gaudy and showy
bees, like gaudy and showy women, are good-for-nothings.

Bees seem to take a pleasure in listening to a rattling noise; and consequently men say that they can muster
them into a hive by rattling with crockery or stones; it is uncertain, however, whether or no they can hear the
noise at all and also whether their procedure is due to pleasure or alarm. They expel from the hive all idlers
and unthrifts. As has been said, they differentiate their work; some make wax, some make honey, some make
bee-bread, some shape and mould combs, some bring water to the cells and mingle it with the honey, some
engage in out-of-door work. At early dawn they make no noise, until some one particular bee makes a
buzzing noise two or three times and thereby awakes the rest; hereupon they all fly in a body to work. By and

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by they return and at first are noisy; then the noise gradually decreases, until at last some one bee flies round
about, making a buzzing noise, and apparently calling on the others to go to sleep; then all of a sudden there
is a dead silence.

The hive is known to be in good condition if the noise heard within it is loud, and if the bees make a flutter as
they go out and in; for at this time they are constructing brood-cells. They suffer most from hunger when
they recommence work after winter. They become somewhat lazy if the bee-keeper, in robbing the hive,
leave behind too much honey; still one should leave cells numerous in proportion to the population, for the
bees work in a spiritless way if too few combs are left. They become idle also, as being dispirited, if the hive
be too big. A hive yields to the bee-keeper six or nine pints of honey; a prosperous hive will yield twelve or
fifteen pints, exceptionally good hives eighteen. Sheep and, as has been said, wasps are enemies to the bees.
Bee-keepers entrap the latter, by putting a flat dish on the ground with pieces of meat on it; when a number
of the wasps settle on it, they cover them with a lid and put the dish and its contents on the fire. It is a good
thing to have a few drones in a hive, as their presence increases the industry of the workers. Bees can tell the
approach of rough weather or of rain; and the proof is that they will not fly away, but even while it is as yet
fine they go fluttering about within a restricted space, and the bee-keeper knows from this that they are
expecting bad weather. When the bees inside the hive hang clustering to one another, it is a sign that the
swarm is intending to quit; consequently, occasion, when a bee-keepers, on seeing this, besprinkle the hive
with sweet wine. It is advisable to plant about the hives pear-trees, beans, Median-grass, Syrian-grass,
yellow pulse, myrtle, poppies, creeping-thyme, and almond-trees. Some bee-keepers sprinkle their bees
with flour, and can distinguish them from others when they are at work out of doors. If the spring be late, or if
there be drought or blight, then grubs are all the fewer in the hives. So much for the habits of bees.

Of wasps, there are two kinds. Of these kinds one is wild and scarce, lives on the mountains, engenders grubs
not underground but on oak-trees, is larger, longer, and blacker than the other kind, is invariably speckled
and furnished with a sting, and is remarkably courageous. The pain from its sting is more severe than that
caused by the others, for the instrument that causes the pain is larger, in proportion to its own larger size.
These wild live over into a second year, and in winter time, when oaks have been in course of felling, they
may be seen coming out and flying away. They lie concealed during the winter, and live in the interior of logs
of wood. Some of them are mother-wasps and some are workers, as with the tamer kind; but it is by
observation of the tame wasps that one may learn the varied characteristics of the mothers and the workers.
For in the case of the tame wasps also there are two kinds; one consists of leaders, who are called mothers,
and the other of workers. The leaders are far larger and milder-tempered than the others. The workers do not
live over into a second year, but all die when winter comes on; and this can be proved, for at the
commencement of winter the workers become drowsy, and about the time of the winter solstice they are
never seen at all. The leaders, the so-called mothers, are seen all through the winter, and live in holes
underground; for men when ploughing or digging in winter have often come upon mother-wasps, but never
upon workers. The mode of reproduction of wasps is as follows. At the approach of summer, when the
leaders have found a sheltered spot, they take to moulding their combs, and construct the so-called
sphecons,-little nests containing four cells or thereabouts, and in these are produced working-wasps but not
mothers. When these are grown up, then they construct other larger combs upon the first, and then again in
like manner others; so that by the close of autumn there are numerous large combs in which the leader, the
so-called mother, engenders no longer working-wasps but mothers. These develop high up in the nest as
large grubs, in cells that occur in groups of four or rather more, pretty much in the same way as we have seen
the grubs of the king-bees to be produced in their cells. After the birth of the working-grubs in the cells, the
leaders do nothing and the workers have to supply them with nourishment; and this is inferred from the fact
that the leaders (of the working-wasps) no longer fly out at this time, but rest quietly indoors. Whether the
leaders of last year after engendering new leaders are killed by the new brood, and whether this occurs

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invariably or whether they can live for a longer time, has not been ascertained by actual observation; neither
can we speak with certainty, as from observation, as to the age attained by the mother-wasp or by the wild
wasps, or as to any other similar phenomenon. The mother-wasp is broad and heavy, fatter and larger than
the ordinary wasp, and from its weight not very strong on the wing; these wasps cannot fly far, and for this
reason they always rest inside the nest, building and managing its indoor arrangements. The so-called
mother-wasps are found in most of the nests; it is a matter of doubt whether or no they are provided with
stings; in all probability, like the king-bees, they have stings, but never protrude them for offence. Of the
ordinary wasps some are destitute of stings, like the drone-bees, and some are provided with them. Those
unprovided therewith are smaller and less spirited and never fight, while the others are big and courageous;
and these latter, by some, are called males, and the stingless, females. At the approach of winter many of the
wasps that have stings appear to lose them; but we have never met an eyewitness of this phenomenon. Wasps
are more abundant in times of drought and in wild localities. They live underground; their combs they mould
out of chips and earth, each comb from a single origin, like a kind of root. They feed on certain flowers and
fruits, but for the most part on animal food. Some of the tame wasps have been observed when sexually
united, but it was not determined whether both, or neither, had stings, or whether one had a sting and the
other had not; wild wasps have been seen under similar circumstances, when one was seen to have a sting but
the case of the other was left undetermined. The wasp-grub does not appear to come into existence by
parturition, for at the outset the grub is too big to be the offspring of a wasp. If you take a wasp by the feet
and let him buzz with the vibration of his wings, wasps that have no stings will fly toward it, and wasps that
have stings will not; from which fact it is inferred by some that one set are males and the other females. In
holes in the ground in winter-time wasps are found, some with stings, and some without. Some build cells,
small and few in number; others build many and large ones. The so-called mothers are caught at the change
of season, mostly on elm-trees, while gathering a substance sticky and gumlike. A large number of
mother-wasps are found when in the previous year wasps have been numerous and the weather rainy; they
are captured in precipitous places, or in vertical clefts in the ground, and they all appear to be furnished with
stings.

So much for the habits of wasps.

Anthrenae do not subsist by culling from flowers as bees do, but for the most part on animal food: for this
reason they hover about dung; for they chase the large flies, and after catching them lop off their heads and
fly away with the rest of the carcases; they are furthermore fond of sweet fruits. Such is their food. They have
also kings or leaders like bees and wasps; and their leaders are larger in proportion to themselves than are
wasp-kings to wasps or bee-kings to bees. The anthrena-king, like the wasp-king, lives indoors. Anthrenae
build their nests underground, scraping out the soil like ants; for neither anthrenae nor wasps go off in
swarms as bees do, but successive layers of young anthrenae keep to the same habitat, and go on enlarging
their nest by scraping out more and more of soil. The nest accordingly attains a great size; in fact, from a
particularly prosperous nest have been removed three and even four baskets full of combs. They do not, like
bees, store up food, but pass the winter in a torpid condition; the greater part of them die in the winter, but it
is uncertain whether that can be said of them all, In the hives of bees several kings are found and they lead off
detachments in swarms, but in the anthrena's nest only one king is found. When individual anthrenae have
strayed from their nest, they cluster on a tree and construct combs, as may be often seen above-ground, and
in this nest they produce a king; when the king is full-grown, he leads them away and settles them along with
himself in a hive or nest. With regard to their sexual unions, and the method of their reproduction, nothing is
known from actual observation. Among bees both the drones and the kings are stingless, and so are certain
wasps, as has been said; but anthrenae appear to be all furnished with stings: though, by the way, it would
well be worth while to carry out investigation as to whether the anthrena-king has a sting or not.

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Humble-bees produce their young under a stone, right on the ground, in a couple of cells or little more; in
these cells is found an attempt at honey, of a poor description. The tenthredon is like the anthrena, but
speckled, and about as broad as a bee. Being epicures as to their food, they fly, one at a time, into kitchens
and on to slices of fish and the like dainties. The tenthredon brings forth, like the wasp, underground, and is
very prolific; its nest is much bigger and longer than that of the wasp. So much for the methods of working
and the habits of life of the bee, the wasp, and all the other similar insects.

As regards the disposition or temper of animals, as has been previously observed, one may detect great
differences in respect to courage and timidity, as also, even among wild animals, in regard to tameness and
wildness. The lion, while he is eating, is most ferocious; but when he is not hungry and has had a good meal,
he is quite gentle. He is totally devoid of suspicion or nervous fear, is fond of romping with animals that have
been reared along with him and to whom he is accustomed, and manifests great affection towards them. In
the chase, as long as he is in view, he makes no attempt to run and shows no fear, but even if he be compelled
by the multitude of the hunters to retreat, he withdraws deliberately, step by step, every now and then turning
his head to regard his pursuers. If, however, he reach wooded cover, then he runs at full speed, until he comes
to open ground, when he resumes his leisurely retreat. When, in the open, he is forced by the number of the
hunters to run while in full view, he does run at the top of his speed, but without leaping and bounding. This
running of his is evenly and continuously kept up like the running of a dog; but when he is in pursuit of his
prey and is close behind, he makes a sudden pounce upon it. The two statements made regarding him are
quite true; the one that he is especially afraid of fire, as Homer pictures him in the line-'and glowing torches,
which, though fierce he dreads,'-and the other, that he keeps a steady eye upon the hunter who hits him, and
flings himself upon him. If a hunter hit him, without hurting him, then if with a bound he gets hold of him, he
will do him no harm, not even with his claws, but after shaking him and giving him a fright will let him go
again. They invade the cattle-folds and attack human beings when they are grown old and so by reason of old
age and the diseased condition of their teeth are unable to pursue their wonted prey. They live to a good old
age. The lion who was captured when lame, had a number of his teeth broken; which fact was regarded by
some as a proof of the longevity of lions, as he could hardly have been reduced to this condition except at an
advanced age. There are two species of lions, the plump, curly-maned, and the long-bodied, straight maned;
the latter kind is courageous, and the former comparatively timid; sometimes they run away with their tail
between their legs, like a dog. A lion was once seen to be on the point of attacking a boar, but to run away
when the boar stiffened his bristles in defence. It is susceptible of hurt from a wound in the flank, but on any
other part of its frame will endure any number of blows, and its head is especially hard. Whenever it inflicts a
wound, either by its teeth or its claws, there flows from the wounded parts suppurating matter, quite yellow,
and not to be stanched by bandage or sponge; the treatment for such a wound is the same as that for the bite
of a dog.

The thos, or civet, is fond of man's company; it does him no harm and is not much afraid of him, but it is an
enemy to the dog and the lion, and consequently is not found in the same habitat with them. The little ones
are the best. Some say that there are two species of the animal, and some say, three; there are probably not
more than three, but, as is the case with certain of the fishes, birds, and quadrupeds, this animal changes in
appearance with the change of season. His colour in winter is not the same as it is in summer; in summer the
animal is smooth-haired, in winter he is clothed in fur.

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The bison is found in Paeonia on Mount Messapium, which separates Paeonia from Maedica; and the
Paeonians call it the monapos. It is the size of a bull, but stouter in build, and not long in the body; its skin,
stretched tight on a frame, would give sitting room for seven people. In general it resembles the ox in
appearance, except that it has a mane that reaches down to the point of the shoulder, as that of the horse
reaches down to its withers; but the hair in its mane is softer than the hair in the horse's mane, and clings
more closely. The colour of the hair is brown-yellow; the mane reaches down to the eyes, and is deep and
thick. The colour of the body is half red, half ashen-grey, like that of the so-called chestnut horse, but
rougher. It has an undercoat of woolly hair. The animal is not found either very black or very red. It has the
bellow of a bull. Its horns are crooked, turned inwards towards each other and useless for purposes of
self-defence; they are a span broad, or a little more, and in volume each horn would hold about three pints of
liquid; the black colour of the horn is beautiful and bright. The tuft of hair on the forehead reaches down to
the eyes, so that the animal sees objects on either flank better than objects right in front. It has no upper teeth,
as is the case also with kine and all other horned animals. Its legs are hairy; it is cloven-footed, and the tail,
which resembles that of the ox, seems not big enough for the size of its body. It tosses up dust and scoops out
the ground with its hooves, like the bull. Its skin is impervious to blows. Owing to the savour of its flesh it is
sought for in the chase. When it is wounded it runs away, and stops only when thoroughly exhausted. It
defends itself against an assailant by kicking and projecting its excrement to a distance of eight yards; this
device it can easily adopt over and over again, and the excrement is so pungent that the hair of hunting-dogs
is burnt off by it. It is only when the animal is disturbed or alarmed that the dung has this property; when the
animal is undisturbed it has no blistering effect. So much for the shape and habits of the animal. When the
season comes for parturition the mothers give birth to their young in troops upon the mountains. Before
dropping their young they scatter their dung in all directions, making a kind of circular rampart around them;
for the animal has the faculty of ejecting excrement in most extraordinary quantities.

Of all wild animals the most easily tamed and the gentlest is the elephant. It can be taught a number of tricks,
the drift and meaning of which it understands; as, for instance, it can taught to kneel in presence of the king.
It is very sensitive, and possessed of an intelligence superior to that of other animals. When the male has had
sexual union with the female, and the female has conceived, the male has no further intercourse with her.

Some say that the elephant lives for two hundred years; others, for one hundred and twenty; that the female
lives nearly as long as the male; that they reach their prime about the age of sixty, and that they are sensitive
to inclement weather and frost. The elephant is found by the banks of rivers, but he is not a river animal; he
can make his way through water, as long as the tip of his trunk can be above the surface, for he blows with
his trunk and breathes through it. The animal is a poor swimmer owing to the heavy weight of his body.

The male camel declines intercourse with its mother; if his keeper tries compulsion, he evinces disinclination.
On one occasion, when intercourse was being declined by the young male, the keeper covered over the
mother and put the young male to her; but, when after the intercourse the wrapping had been removed,
though the operation was completed and could not be revoked, still by and by he bit his keeper to death. A
story goes that the king of Scythia had a highly-bred mare, and that all her foals were splendid; that wishing
to mate the best of the young males with the mother, he had him brought to the stall for the purpose; that the
young horse declined; that, after the mother's head had been concealed in a wrapper he, in ignorance, had
intercourse; and that, when immediately afterwards the wrapper was removed and the head of the mare was
rendered visible, the young horse ran way and hurled himself down a precipice.

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Among the sea-fishes many stories are told about the dolphin, indicative of his gentle and kindly nature, and
of manifestations of passionate attachment to boys, in and about Tarentum, Caria, and other places. The story
goes that, after a dolphin had been caught and wounded off the coast of Caria, a shoal of dolphins came into
the harbour and stopped there until the fisherman let his captive go free; whereupon the shoal departed. A
shoal of young dolphins is always, by way of protection, followed by a large one. On one occasion a shoal of
dolphins, large and small, was seen, and two dolphins at a little distance appeared swimming in underneath a
little dead dolphin when it was sinking, and supporting it on their backs, trying out of compassion to prevent
its being devoured by some predaceous fish. Incredible stories are told regarding the rapidity of movement of
this creature. It appears to be the fleetest of all animals, marine and terrestrial, and it can leap over the masts
of large vessels. This speed is chiefly manifested when they are pursuing a fish for food; then, if the fish
endeavours to escape, they pursue him in their ravenous hunger down to deep waters; but, when the necessary
return swim is getting too long, they hold in their breath, as though calculating the length of it, and then draw
themselves together for an effort and shoot up like arrows, trying to make the long ascent rapidly in order to
breathe, and in the effort they spring right over the a ship's masts if a ship be in the vicinity. This same
phenomenon is observed in divers, when they have plunged into deep water; that is, they pull themselves
together and rise with a speed proportional to their strength. Dolphins live together in pairs, male and female.
It is not known for what reason they run themselves aground on dry land; at all events, it is said that they do
so at times, and for no obvious reason.

Just as with all animals a change of action follows a change of circumstance, so also a change of character
follows a change of action, and often some portions of the physical frame undergo a change, occurs in the
case of birds. Hens, for instance, when they have beaten the cock in a fight, will crow like the cock and
endeavour to tread him; the crest rises up on their head and the tail-feathers on the rump, so that it becomes
difficult to recognize that they are hens; in some cases there is a growth of small spurs. On the death of a hen
a cock has been seen to undertake the maternal duties, leading the chickens about and providing them with
food, and so intent upon these duties as to cease crowing and indulging his sexual propensities. Some
cock-birds are congenitally so feminine that they will submit patiently to other males who attempt to tread
them.

Some animals change their form and character, not only at certain ages and at certain seasons, but in
consequence of being castrated; and all animals possessed of testicles may be submitted to this operation.
Birds have their testicles inside, and oviparous quadrupeds close to the loins; and of viviparous animals that
walk some have them inside, and most have them outside, but all have them at the lower end of the belly.
Birds are castrated at the rump at the part where the two sexes unite in copulation. If you burn this twice or
thrice with hot irons, then, if the bird be full-grown, his crest grows sallow, he ceases to crow, and foregoes
sexual passion; but if you cauterize the bird when young, none of these male attributes propensities will come
to him as he grows up. The case is the same with men: if you mutilate them in boyhood, the later-growing
hair never comes, and the voice never changes but remains high-pitched; if they be mutilated in early
manhood, the late growths of hair quit them except the growth on the groin, and that diminishes but does not
entirely depart. The congenital growths of hair never fall out, for a eunuch never grows bald. In the case of all
castrated or mutilated male quadrupeds the voice changes to the feminine voice. All other quadrupeds when
castrated, unless the operation be performed when they are young, invariably die; but in the case of boars, and
in their case only, the age at which the operation is performed produces no difference. All animals, if
operated on when they are young, become bigger and better looking than their unmutilated fellows; if they be

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mutilated when full-grown, they do not take on any increase of size. If stags be mutilated, when, by reason of
their age, they have as yet no horns, they never grow horns at all; if they be mutilated when they have horns,
the horns remain unchanged in size, and the animal does not lose them. Calves are mutilated when a year old;
otherwise, they turn out uglier and smaller. Steers are mutilated in the following way: they turn the animal
over on its back, cut a little off the scrotum at the lower end, and squeeze out the testicles, then push back the
roots of them as far as they can, and stop up the incision with hair to give an outlet to suppurating matter; if
inflammation ensues, they cauterize the scrotum and put on a plaster. If a full-grown bull be mutilated, he
can still to all appearance unite sexually with the cow. The ovaries of sows are excised with the view of
quenching in them sexual appetites and of stimulating growth in size and fatness. The sow has first to be kept
two days without food, and, after being hung up by the hind legs, it is operated on; they cut the lower belly,
about the place where the boars have their testicles, for it is there that the ovary grows, adhering to the two
divisions (or horns) of the womb; they cut off a little piece and stitch up the incision. Female camels are
mutilated when they are wanted for war purposes, and are mutilated to prevent their being got with young.
Some of the inhabitants of Upper Asia have as many as three thousand camels: when they run, they run, in
consequence of the length of their stride, much quicker than the horses of Nisaea. As a general rule, mutilated
animals grow to a greater length than the unmutilated.

All animals that ruminate derive profit and pleasure from the process of rumination, as they do from the
process of eating. It is the animals that lack the upper teeth that ruminate, such as kine, sheep, and goats. In
the case of wild animals no observation has been possible; save in the case of animals that are occasionally
domesticated, such as the stag, and it, we know, chews the cud. All animals that ruminate generally do so
when lying down on the ground. They carry on the process to the greatest extent in winter, and stall-fed
ruminants carry it on for about seven months in the year; beasts that go in herds, as they get their food out of
doors, ruminate to a lesser degree and over a lesser period. Some, also, of the animals that have teeth in both
jaws ruminate; as, for instance, the Pontic mice, and the fish which from the habit is by some called 'the
Ruminant', (as well as other fish).

Long-limbed animals have loose faeces, and broad-chested animals vomit with comparative facility, and
these remarks are, in a general way, applicable to quadrupeds, birds, and men.

49B

A considerable number of birds change according to season the colour of their plumage and their note; as, for
instance, the owsel becomes yellow instead of black, and its note gets altered, for in summer it has a musical
note and in winter a discordant chatter. The thrush also changes its colour; about the throat it is marked in
winter with speckles like a starling, in summer distinctly spotted: however, it never alters its note. The
nightingale, when the hills are taking on verdure, sings continually for fifteen days and fifteen nights;
afterwards it sings, but not continuously. As summer advances it has a different song, not so varied as before,
nor so deep, nor so intricately modulated, but simple; it also changes its colour, and in Italy about this season
it goes by a different name. It goes into hiding, and is consequently visible only for a brief period. The
erithacus (or redbreast) and the so-called redstart change into one another; the former is a winter bird, the
latter a summer one, and the difference between them is practically limited to the coloration of their plumage.
In the same way with the beccafico and the blackcap; these change into one another. The beccafico appears
about autumn, and the blackcap as soon as autumn has ended. These birds, also, differ from one another only
in colour and note; that these birds, two in name, are one in reality is proved by the fact that at the period
when the change is in progress each one has been seen with the change as yet incomplete. It is not so very
strange that in these cases there is a change in note and in plumage, for even the ring-dove ceases to coo in
winter, and recommences cooing when spring comes in; in winter, however, when fine weather has
succeeded to very stormy weather, this bird has been known to give its cooing note, to the astonishment of
such as were acquainted with its usual winter silence. As a general rule, birds sing most loudly and most

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diversely in the pairing season. The cuckoo changes its colour, and its note is not clearly heard for a short
time previous to its departure. It departs about the rising of the Dog-star, and it reappears from springtime to
the rising of the Dog-star. At the rise of this star the bird called by some oenanthe disappears, and reappears
when it is setting: thus keeping clear at one time of extreme cold, and at another time of extreme heat. The
hoopoe also changes its colour and appearance, as Aeschylus has represented in the following lines:-

The Hoopoe, witness to his own distress,

Is clad by Zeus in variable dress:-

Now a gay mountain-bird, with knightly crest,

Now in the white hawk's silver plumage drest,

For, timely changing, on the hawk's white wing

He greets the apparition of the Spring.

Thus twofold form and colour are conferred,

In youth and age, upon the selfsame bird.

The spangled raiment marks his youthful days,

The argent his maturity displays;

And when the fields are yellow with ripe corn

Again his particoloured plumes are worn.

But evermore, in sullen discontent,

He seeks the lonely hills, in self-sought banishment.

Of birds, some take a dust-bath by rolling in dust, some take a water-bath, and some take neither the one
bath nor the other. Birds that do not fly but keep on the ground take the dust-bath, as for instance the hen, the
partridge, the francolin, the crested lark, the pheasant; some of the straight-taloned birds, and such as live on
the banks of a river, in marshes, or by the sea, take a water-bath; some birds take both the dust-bath and the
waterbath, as for instance the pigeon and the sparrow; of the crooked-taloned birds the greater part take
neither the one bath nor the other. So much for the ways of the above-mentioned, but some birds have a
peculiar habit of making a noise at their hinder quarters, as, for instance, the turtle-dove; and they make a
violent movement of their tails at the same time that they produce this peculiar sound.

-THE END-

49B 176

ON INTERPRETATION

by Aristotle

ON INTERPRETATION

Table of Contents

ON INTERPRETATION. 1

by Aristotle 1

_1 1

2 1

3. 2

A 2

_5 3

6 3

1_ 4

1 5

_9 5

10 7

11 9

J2 11

13 12

14 14

ON INTERPRETATION

by Aristotle

translated by E. M. Edghill

11
13

First we must define the terms 'noun' and 'verb', then the terms 'denial' and 'affirmation', then 'proposition' and
'sentence.'

Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just
as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental
experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our
experiences are the images. This matter has, however, been discussed in my treatise about the soul, for it
belongs to an investigation distinct from that which lies before us.

As there are in the mind thoughts which do not involve truth or falsity, and also those which must be either
true or false, so it is in speech. For truth and falsity imply combination and separation. Nouns and verbs,
provided nothing is added, are like thoughts without combination or separation; 'man' and 'white', as isolated
terms, are not yet either true or false. In proof of this, consider the word 'goat-stag.' It has significance, but
there is no truth or falsity about it, unless 'is' or 'is not' is added, either in the present or in some other tense.

By a noun we mean a sound significant by convention, which has no reference to time, and of which no part
is significant apart from the rest. In the noun 'Fairsteed,' the part 'steed' has no significance in and by itself, as

ON INTERPRETATION 1

ON INTERPRETATION

in the phrase 'fair steed.' Yet there is a difference between simple and composite nouns; for in the former the
part is in no way significant, in the latter it contributes to the meaning of the whole, although it has not an
independent meaning. Thus in the word 'pirate-boat' the word 'boat' has no meaning except as part of the
whole word.

The limitation 'by convention' was introduced because nothing is by nature a noun or name-it is only so
when it becomes a symbol; inarticulate sounds, such as those which brutes produce, are significant, yet none
of these constitutes a noun.

The expression 'not-man' is not a noun. There is indeed no recognized term by which we may denote such an
expression, for it is not a sentence or a denial. Let it then be called an indefinite noun.

The expressions 'of Philo', 'to Philo', and so on, constitute not nouns, but cases of a noun. The definition of
these cases of a noun is in other respects the same as that of the noun proper, but, when coupled with 'is',
'was', or will be', they do not, as they are, form a proposition either true or false, and this the noun proper
always does, under these conditions. Take the words 'of Philo is' or 'of or 'of Philo is not'; these words do not,
as they stand, form either a true or a false proposition.

A verb is that which, in addition to its proper meaning, carries with it the notion of time. No part of it has any
independent meaning, and it is a sign of something said of something else.

I will explain what I mean by saying that it carries with it the notion of time. 'Health is a noun, but 'is healthy'
is a verb; for besides its proper meaning it indicates the present existence of the state in question.

Moreover, a verb is always a sign of something said of something else, i.e. of something either predicable of
or present in some other thing.

Such expressions as 'is not-healthy', 'is not, ill', I do not describe as verbs; for though they carry the
additional note of time, and always form a predicate, there is no specified name for this variety; but let them
be called indefinite verbs, since they apply equally well to that which exists and to that which does not.

Similarly 'he was healthy', 'he will be healthy', are not verbs, but tenses of a verb; the difference lies in the
fact that the verb indicates present time, while the tenses of the verb indicate those times which lie outside the
present.

Verbs in and by themselves are substantival and have significance, for he who uses such expressions arrests
the hearer's mind, and fixes his attention; but they do not, as they stand, express any judgement, either
positive or negative. For neither are 'to be' and 'not to be' the participle 'being' significant of any fact, unless
something is added; for they do not themselves indicate anything, but imply a copulation, of which we cannot
form a conception apart from the things coupled.

A sentence is a significant portion of speech, some parts of which have an independent meaning, that is to
say, as an utterance, though not as the expression of any positive judgement. Let me explain. The word
'human' has meaning, but does not constitute a proposition, either positive or negative. It is only when other
words are added that the whole will form an affirmation or denial. But if we separate one syllable of the word
'human' from the other, it has no meaning; similarly in the word 'mouse', the part 'ouse' has no meaning in

ON INTERPRETATION

itself, but is merely a sound. In composite words, indeed, the parts contribute to the meaning of the whole;
yet, as has been pointed out, they have not an independent meaning.

Every sentence has meaning, not as being the natural means by which a physical faculty is realized, but, as
we have said, by convention. Yet every sentence is not a proposition; only such are propositions as have in
them either truth or falsity. Thus a prayer is a sentence, but is neither true nor false.

Let us therefore dismiss all other types of sentence but the proposition, for this last concerns our present
inquiry, whereas the investigation of the others belongs rather to the study of rhetoric or of poetry.

The first class of simple propositions is the simple affirmation, the next, the simple denial; all others are only
one by conjunction.

Every proposition must contain a verb or the tense of a verb. The phrase which defines the species 'man', if no
verb in present, past, or future time be added, is not a proposition. It may be asked how the expression 'a
footed animal with two feet' can be called single; for it is not the circumstance that the words follow in
unbroken succession that effects the unity. This inquiry, however, finds its place in an investigation foreign to
that before us.

We call those propositions single which indicate a single fact, or the conjunction of the parts of which results
in unity: those propositions, on the other hand, are separate and many in number, which indicate many facts,
or whose parts have no conjunction.

Let us, moreover, consent to call a noun or a verb an expression only, and not a proposition, since it is not
possible for a man to speak in this way when he is expressing something, in such a way as to make a
statement, whether his utterance is an answer to a question or an act of his own initiation.

To return: of propositions one kind is simple, i.e. that which asserts or denies something of something, the
other composite, i.e. that which is compounded of simple propositions. A simple proposition is a statement,
with meaning, as to the presence of something in a subject or its absence, in the present, past, or future,
according to the divisions of time.

An affirmation is a positive assertion of something about something, a denial a negative assertion.

Now it is possible both to affirm and to deny the presence of something which is present or of something
which is not, and since these same affirmations and denials are possible with reference to those times which
lie outside the present, it would be possible to contradict any affirmation or denial. Thus it is plain that every
affirmation has an opposite denial, and similarly every denial an opposite affirmation.

We will call such a pair of propositions a pair of contradictories. Those positive and negative propositions are
said to be contradictory which have the same subject and predicate. The identity of subject and of predicate
must not be 'equivocal'. Indeed there are definitive qualifications besides this, which we make to meet the
casuistries of sophists.

ON INTERPRETATION

Some things are universal, others individual. By the term 'universal' I mean that which is of such a nature as
to be predicated of many subjects, by 'individual' that which is not thus predicated. Thus 'man' is a universal,
'Callias' an individual.

Our propositions necessarily sometimes concern a universal subject, sometimes an individual.

If, then, a man states a positive and a negative proposition of universal character with regard to a universal,
these two propositions are 'contrary'. By the expression 'a proposition of universal character with regard to a
universal', such propositions as 'every man is white', 'no man is white' are meant. When, on the other hand,
the positive and negative propositions, though they have regard to a universal, are yet not of universal
character, they will not be contrary, albeit the meaning intended is sometimes contrary. As instances of
propositions made with regard to a universal, but not of universal character, we may take the 'propositions
'man is white', 'man is not white'. 'Man' is a universal, but the proposition is not made as of universal
character; for the word 'every' does not make the subject a universal, but rather gives the proposition a
universal character. If, however, both predicate and subject are distributed, the proposition thus constituted is
contrary to truth; no affirmation will, under such circumstances, be true. The proposition 'every man is every
animal' is an example of this type.

An affirmation is opposed to a denial in the sense which I denote by the term 'contradictory', when, while the
subject remains the same, the affirmation is of universal character and the denial is not. The affirmation
'every man is white' is the contradictory of the denial 'not every man is white', or again, the proposition 'no
man is white' is the contradictory of the proposition 'some men are white'. But propositions are opposed as
contraries when both the affirmation and the denial are universal, as in the sentences 'every man is white', 'no
man is white', 'every man is just', 'no man is just'.

We see that in a pair of this sort both propositions cannot be true, but the contradictories of a pair of
contraries can sometimes both be true with reference to the same subject; for instance 'not every man is white'
and some men are white' are both true. Of such corresponding positive and negative propositions as refer to
universals and have a universal character, one must be true and the other false. This is the case also when the
reference is to individuals, as in the propositions 'Socrates is white', 'Socrates is not white'.

When, on the other hand, the reference is to universals, but the propositions are not universal, it is not always
the case that one is true and the other false, for it is possible to state truly that man is white and that man is
not white and that man is beautiful and that man is not beautiful; for if a man is deformed he is the reverse of
beautiful, also if he is progressing towards beauty he is not yet beautiful.

This statement might seem at first sight to carry with it a contradiction, owing to the fact that the proposition
'man is not white' appears to be equivalent to the proposition 'no man is white'. This, however, is not the case,
nor are they necessarily at the same time true or false.

It is evident also that the denial corresponding to a single affirmation is itself single; for the denial must deny
just that which the affirmation affirms concerning the same subject, and must correspond with the affirmation
both in the universal or particular character of the subject and in the distributed or undistributed sense in
which it is understood.

For instance, the affirmation 'Socrates is white' has its proper denial in the proposition 'Socrates is not white'.
If anything else be negatively predicated of the subject or if anything else be the subject though the predicate
remain the same, the denial will not be the denial proper to that affirmation, but on that is distinct.

ON INTERPRETATION

The denial proper to the affirmation 'every man is white' is 'not every man is white'; that proper to the
affirmation 'some men are white' is 'no man is white', while that proper to the affirmation 'man is white' is
'man is not white'.

We have shown further that a single denial is contradictorily opposite to a single affirmation and we have
explained which these are; we have also stated that contrary are distinct from contradictory propositions and
which the contrary are; also that with regard to a pair of opposite propositions it is not always the case that
one is true and the other false. We have pointed out, moreover, what the reason of this is and under what
circumstances the truth of the one involves the falsity of the other.

An affirmation or denial is single, if it indicates some one fact about some one subject; it matters not whether
the subject is universal and whether the statement has a universal character, or whether this is not so. Such
single propositions are: 'every man is white', 'not every man is white';'man is white','man is not white'; 'no
man is white', 'some men are white'; provided the word 'white' has one meaning. If, on the other hand, one
word has two meanings which do not combine to form one, the affirmation is not single. For instance, if a
man should establish the symbol 'garment' as significant both of a horse and of a man, the proposition
'garment is white' would not be a single affirmation, nor its opposite a single denial. For it is equivalent to the
proposition 'horse and man are white', which, again, is equivalent to the two propositions 'horse is white',
'man is white'. If, then, these two propositions have more than a single significance, and do not form a single
proposition, it is plain that the first proposition either has more than one significance or else has none; for a
particular man is not a horse.

This, then, is another instance of those propositions of which both the positive and the negative forms may be
true or false simultaneously.

In the case of that which is or which has taken place, propositions, whether positive or negative, must be true
or false. Again, in the case of a pair of contradictories, either when the subject is universal and the
propositions are of a universal character, or when it is individual, as has been said,' one of the two must be
true and the other false; whereas when the subject is universal, but the propositions are not of a universal
character, there is no such necessity. We have discussed this type also in a previous chapter.

When the subject, however, is individual, and that which is predicated of it relates to the future, the case is
altered. For if all propositions whether positive or negative are either true or false, then any given predicate
must either belong to the subject or not, so that if one man affirms that an event of a given character will take
place and another denies it, it is plain that the statement of the one will correspond with reality and that of the
other will not. For the predicate cannot both belong and not belong to the subject at one and the same time
with regard to the future.

Thus, if it is true to say that a thing is white, it must necessarily be white; if the reverse proposition is true, it
will of necessity not be white. Again, if it is white, the proposition stating that it is white was true; if it is not
white, the proposition to the opposite effect was true. And if it is not white, the man who states that it is
making a false statement; and if the man who states that it is white is making a false statement, it follows that
it is not white. It may therefore be argued that it is necessary that affirmations or denials must be either true
or false.

ON INTERPRETATION

Now if this be so, nothing is or takes place fortuitously, either in the present or in the future, and there are no
real alternatives; everything takes place of necessity and is fixed. For either he that affirms that it will take
place or he that denies this is in correspondence with fact, whereas if things did not take place of necessity, an
event might just as easily not happen as happen; for the meaning of the word 'fortuitous' with regard to
present or future events is that reality is so constituted that it may issue in either of two opposite directions.
Again, if a thing is white now, it was true before to say that it would be white, so that of anything that has
taken place it was always true to say 'it is' or 'it will be'. But if it was always true to say that a thing is or will
be, it is not possible that it should not be or not be about to be, and when a thing cannot not come to be, it is
impossible that it should not come to be, and when it is impossible that it should not come to be, it must come
to be. All, then, that is about to be must of necessity take place. It results from this that nothing is uncertain or
fortuitous, for if it were fortuitous it would not be necessary.

Again, to say that neither the affirmation nor the denial is true, maintaining, let us say, that an event neither
will take place nor will not take place, is to take up a position impossible to defend. In the first place, though
facts should prove the one proposition false, the opposite would still be untrue. Secondly, if it was true to say
that a thing was both white and large, both these qualities must necessarily belong to it; and if they will
belong to it the next day, they must necessarily belong to it the next day. But if an event is neither to take
place nor not to take place the next day, the element of chance will be eliminated. For example, it would be
necessary that a sea-fight should neither take place nor fail to take place on the next day.

These awkward results and others of the same kind follow, if it is an irrefragable law that of every pair of
contradictory propositions, whether they have regard to universals and are stated as universally applicable, or
whether they have regard to individuals, one must be true and the other false, and that there are no real
alternatives, but that all that is or takes place is the outcome of necessity. There would be no need to
deliberate or to take trouble, on the supposition that if we should adopt a certain course, a certain result would
follow, while, if we did not, the result would not follow. For a man may predict an event ten thousand years
beforehand, and another may predict the reverse; that which was truly predicted at the moment in the past
will of necessity take place in the fullness of time.

Further, it makes no difference whether people have or have not actually made the contradictory statements.
For it is manifest that the circumstances are not influenced by the fact of an affirmation or denial on the part
of anyone. For events will not take place or fail to take place because it was stated that they would or would
not take place, nor is this any more the case if the prediction dates back ten thousand years or any other space
of time. Wherefore, if through all time the nature of things was so constituted that a prediction about an event
was true, then through all time it was necessary that that should find fulfillment; and with regard to all events,
circumstances have always been such that their occurrence is a matter of necessity. For that of which
someone has said truly that it will be, cannot fail to take place; and of that which takes place, it was always
true to say that it would be.

Yet this view leads to an impossible conclusion; for we see that both deliberation and action are causative
with regard to the future, and that, to speak more generally, in those things which are not continuously actual
there is potentiality in either direction. Such things may either be or not be; events also therefore may either
take place or not take place. There are many obvious instances of this. It is possible that this coat may be cut
in half, and yet it may not be cut in half, but wear out first. In the same way, it is possible that it should not be
cut in half; unless this were so, it would not be possible that it should wear out first. So it is therefore with all
other events which possess this kind of potentiality. It is therefore plain that it is not of necessity that
everything is or takes place; but in some instances there are real alternatives, in which case the affirmation is
no more true and no more false than the denial; while some exhibit a predisposition and general tendency in
one direction or the other, and yet can issue in the opposite direction by exception.

ON INTERPRETATION

Now that which is must needs be when it is, and that which is not must needs not be when it is not. Yet it
cannot be said without qualification that all existence and non-existence is the outcome of necessity. For
there is a difference between saying that that which is, when it is, must needs be, and simply saying that all
that is must needs be, and similarly in the case of that which is not. In the case, also, of two contradictory
propositions this holds good. Everything must either be or not be, whether in the present or in the future, but
it is not always possible to distinguish and state determinately which of these alternatives must necessarily
come about.

Let me illustrate. A sea-fight must either take place to-morrow or not, but it is not necessary that it should
take place to-morrow, neither is it necessary that it should not take place, yet it is necessary that it either
should or should not take place to-morrow. Since propositions correspond with facts, it is evident that when
in future events there is a real alternative, and a potentiality in contrary directions, the corresponding
affirmation and denial have the same character.

This is the case with regard to that which is not always existent or not always nonexistent. One of the two
propositions in such instances must be true and the other false, but we cannot say determinately that this or
that is false, but must leave the alternative undecided. One may indeed be more likely to be true than the
other, but it cannot be either actually true or actually false. It is therefore plain that it is not necessary that of
an affirmation and a denial one should be true and the other false. For in the case of that which exists
potentially, but not actually, the rule which applies to that which exists actually does not hold good. The case
is rather as we have indicated.

An affirmation is the statement of a fact with regard to a subject, and this subject is either a noun or that
which has no name; the subject and predicate in an affirmation must each denote a single thing. I have
already explained' what is meant by a noun and by that which has no name; for I stated that the expression
'not-man' was not a noun, in the proper sense of the word, but an indefinite noun, denoting as it does in a
certain sense a single thing. Similarly the expression 'does not enjoy health' is not a verb proper, but an
indefinite verb. Every affirmation, then, and every denial, will consist of a noun and a verb, either definite or
indefinite.

There can be no affirmation or denial without a verb; for the expressions 'is', 'will be', 'was', 'is coming to be',
and the like are verbs according to our definition, since besides their specific meaning they convey the notion
of time. Thus the primary affirmation and denial are 'as follows: 'man is', 'man is not'. Next to these, there are
the propositions: 'not-man is', 'not-man is not'. Again we have the propositions: 'every man is, 'every man is
not', 'all that is not-man is', 'all that is not-man is not'. The same classification holds good with regard to such
periods of time as lie outside the present.

When the verb 'is' is used as a third element in the sentence, there can be positive and negative propositions
of two sorts. Thus in the sentence 'man is just' the verb 'is' is used as a third element, call it verb or noun,
which you will. Four propositions, therefore, instead of two can be formed with these materials. Two of the
four, as regards their affirmation and denial, correspond in their logical sequence with the propositions which
deal with a condition of privation; the other two do not correspond with these.

I mean that the verb 'is' is added either to the term just' or to the term 'not-just', and two negative
propositions are formed in the same way. Thus we have the four propositions. Reference to the subjoined
table will make matters clear:

A. Affirmation B. Denial

ON INTERPRETATION

Man is just Man is not just
\ /

X
/ \
D. Denial C. Affirmation

Man is not not-just Man is not-just

Here 'is' and 'is not' are added either to 'just' or to 'not-just'. This then is the proper scheme for these
propositions, as has been said in the Analytics. The same rule holds good, if the subject is distributed. Thus
we have the table:

A'. Affirmation B'. Denial

Every man is just Not every man is just

\ /
X
D'. Denial / \ C. Affirmation

Not every man is not-just Every man is not-just Yet here it is not possible, in the same way as in the former
case, that the propositions joined in the table by a diagonal line should both be true; though under certain
circumstances this is the case.

We have thus set out two pairs of opposite propositions; there are moreover two other pairs, if a term be
conjoined with 'not-man', the latter forming a kind of subject. Thus:

A." B."

Not-man is just Not-man is not just

\ /
X
D." / \ C."

Not-man is not not-just Not-man is not-just

This is an exhaustive enumeration of all the pairs of opposite propositions that can possibly be framed. This
last group should remain distinct from those which preceded it, since it employs as its subject the expression
'not-man'.

When the verb 'is' does not fit the structure of the sentence (for instance, when the verbs 'walks', 'enjoys
health' are used), that scheme applies, which applied when the word 'is' was added.

Thus we have the propositions: 'every man enjoys health', 'every man does-not-enjoy-health, 'all that is
not-man enjoys health, 'all that is not-man does-not-enjoy-health'. We must not in these propositions use
the expression 'not every man'. The negative must be attached to the word 'man', for the word 'every' does not
give to the subject a universal significance, but implies that, as a subject, it is distributed. This is plain from
the following pairs: 'man enjoys health', 'man does not enjoy health'; 'not-man enjoys health, 'not man does
not enjoy health'. These propositions differ from the former in being indefinite and not universal in character.
Thus the adjectives 'every' and no additional significance except that the subject, whether in a positive or in a
negative sentence, is distributed. The rest of the sentence, therefore, will in each case be the same.

Since the contrary of the proposition 'every animal is just' is 'no animal is just', it is plain that these two
propositions will never both be true at the same time or with reference to the same subject. Sometimes,
however, the contradictories of these contraries will both be true, as in the instance before us: the propositions
'not every animal is just' and 'some animals are just' are both true.

ON INTERPRETATION

Further, the proposition 'no man is just' follows from the proposition 'every man is not just' and the
proposition 'not every man is not just', which is the opposite of 'every man is not-just', follows from the
proposition 'some men are just'; for if this be true, there must be some just men.

It is evident, also, that when the subject is individual, if a question is asked and the negative answer is the true
one, a certain positive proposition is also true. Thus, if the question were asked Socrates wise?' and the
negative answer were the true one, the positive inference 'Then Socrates is unwise' is correct. But no such
inference is correct in the case of universals, but rather a negative proposition. For instance, if to the question
'Is every man wise?' the answer is 'no', the inference 'Then every man is unwise' is false. But under these
circumstances the inference 'Not every man is wise' is correct. This last is the contradictory, the former the
contrary. Negative expressions, which consist of an indefinite noun or predicate, such as 'not-man' or
'not-just', may seem to be denials containing neither noun nor verb in the proper sense of the words. But they
are not. For a denial must always be either true or false, and he that uses the expression 'not man', if nothing
more be added, is not nearer but rather further from making a true or a false statement than he who uses the
expression 'man'.

The propositions 'everything that is not man is just', and the contradictory of this, are not equivalent to any of
the other propositions; on the other hand, the proposition 'everything that is not man is not just' is equivalent
to the proposition 'nothing that is not man is just'.

The conversion of the position of subject and predicate in a sentence involves no difference in its meaning.
Thus we say 'man is white' and 'white is man'. If these were not equivalent, there would be more than one
contradictory to the same proposition, whereas it has been demonstrated' that each proposition has one proper
contradictory and one only. For of the proposition 'man is white' the appropriate contradictory is 'man is not
white', and of the proposition 'white is man', if its meaning be different, the contradictory will either be 'white
is not not-man' or 'white is not man'. Now the former of these is the contradictory of the proposition 'white is
not-man', and the latter of these is the contradictory of the proposition 'man is white'; thus there will be two
contradictories to one proposition.

It is evident, therefore, that the inversion of the relative position of subject and predicate does not affect the
sense of affirmations and denials.

There is no unity about an affirmation or denial which, either positively or negatively, predicates one thing of
many subjects, or many things of the same subject, unless that which is indicated by the many is really some
one thing, do not apply this word 'one' to those things which, though they have a single recognized name, yet
do not combine to form a unity. Thus, man may be an animal, and biped, and domesticated, but these three
predicates combine to form a unity. On the other hand, the predicates 'white', 'man', and 'walking' do not thus
combine. Neither, therefore, if these three form the subject of an affirmation, nor if they form its predicate, is
there any unity about that affirmation. In both cases the unity is linguistic, but not real.

If therefore the dialectical question is a request for an answer, i.e. either for the admission of a premiss or for
the admission of one of two contradictories-and the premiss is itself always one of two contradictories-the
answer to such a question as contains the above predicates cannot be a single proposition. For as I have
explained in the Topics, question is not a single one, even if the answer asked for is true.

At the same time it is plain that a question of the form 'what is it?' is not a dialectical question, for a
dialectical questioner must by the form of his question give his opponent the chance of announcing one of
two alternatives, whichever he wishes. He must therefore put the question into a more definite form, and

11 9

ON INTERPRETATION

inquire, e.g.. whether man has such and such a characteristic or not.

Some combinations of predicates are such that the separate predicates unite to form a single predicate. Let us
consider under what conditions this is and is not possible. We may either state in two separate propositions
that man is an animal and that man is a biped, or we may combine the two, and state that man is an animal
with two feet. Similarly we may use 'man' and 'white' as separate predicates, or unite them into one. Yet if a
man is a shoemaker and is also good, we cannot construct a composite proposition and say that he is a good
shoemaker. For if, whenever two separate predicates truly belong to a subject, it follows that the predicate
resulting from their combination also truly belongs to the subject, many absurd results ensue. For instance, a
man is man and white. Therefore, if predicates may always be combined, he is a white man. Again, if the
predicate 'white' belongs to him, then the combination of that predicate with the former composite predicate
will be permissible. Thus it will be right to say that he is a white man so on indefinitely. Or, again, we may
combine the predicates 'musical', 'white', and 'walking', and these may be combined many times. Similarly we
may say that Socrates is Socrates and a man, and that therefore he is the man Socrates, or that Socrates is a
man and a biped, and that therefore he is a two-footed man. Thus it is manifest that if man states
unconditionally that predicates can always be combined, many absurd consequences ensue.

We will now explain what ought to be laid down.

Those predicates, and terms forming the subject of predication, which are accidental either to the same
subject or to one another, do not combine to form a unity. Take the proposition 'man is white of complexion
and musical'. Whiteness and being musical do not coalesce to form a unity, for they belong only accidentally
to the same subject. Nor yet, if it were true to say that that which is white is musical, would the terms
'musical' and 'white' form a unity, for it is only incidentally that that which is musical is white; the
combination of the two will, therefore, not form a unity.

Thus, again, whereas, if a man is both good and a shoemaker, we cannot combine the two propositions and
say simply that he is a good shoemaker, we are, at the same time, able to combine the predicates 'animal' and
'biped' and say that a man is an animal with two feet, for these predicates are not accidental.

Those predicates, again, cannot form a unity, of which the one is implicit in the other: thus we cannot
combine the predicate 'white' again and again with that which already contains the notion 'white', nor is it
right to call a man an animal-man or a two-footed man; for the notions 'animal' and 'biped' are implicit in the
word 'man'. On the other hand, it is possible to predicate a term simply of any one instance, and to say that
some one particular man is a man or that some one white man is a white man.

Yet this is not always possible: indeed, when in the adjunct there is some opposite which involves a
contradiction, the predication of the simple term is impossible. Thus it is not right to call a dead man a man.
When, however, this is not the case, it is not impossible.

Yet the facts of the case might rather be stated thus: when some such opposite elements are present,
resolution is never possible, but when they are not present, resolution is nevertheless not always possible.
Take the proposition 'Homer is so-and-so', say 'a poet'; does it follow that Homer is, or does it not? The verb
'is' is here used of Homer only incidentally, the proposition being that Homer is a poet, not that he is, in the
independent sense of the word.

Thus, in the case of those predications which have within them no contradiction when the nouns are
expanded into definitions, and wherein the predicates belong to the subject in their own proper sense and not
in any indirect way, the individual may be the subject of the simple propositions as well as of the composite.
But in the case of that which is not, it is not true to say that because it is the object of opinion, it is; for the
opinion held about it is that it is not, not that it is.

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As these distinctions have been made, we must consider the mutual relation of those affirmations and denials
which assert or deny possibility or contingency, impossibility or necessity: for the subject is not without
difficulty.

We admit that of composite expressions those are contradictory each to each which have the verb 'to be' its
positive and negative form respectively. Thus the contradictory of the proposition 'man is' is 'man is not', not
'not-man is', and the contradictory of 'man is white' is 'man is not white', not 'man is not-white'. For
otherwise, since either the positive or the negative proposition is true of any subject, it will turn out true to
say that a piece of wood is a man that is not white.

Now if this is the case, in those propositions which do not contain the verb 'to be' the verb which takes its
place will exercise the same function. Thus the contradictory of 'man walks' is 'man does not walk, not
'not-man walks'; for to say 'man walks' merely equivalent to saying 'man is walking'.

If then this rule is universal, the contradictory of 'it may be' is may not be', not 'it cannot be'.

Now it appears that the same thing both may and may not be; for instance, everything that may be cut or may
walk may also escape cutting and refrain from walking; and the reason is that those things that have
potentiality in this sense are not always actual. In such cases, both the positive and the negative propositions
will be true; for that which is capable of walking or of being seen has also a potentiality in the opposite
direction.

But since it is impossible that contradictory propositions should both be true of the same subject, it follows
that' it may not be' is not the contradictory of 'it may be'. For it is a logical consequence of what we have said,
either that the same predicate can be both applicable and inapplicable to one and the same subject at the same
time, or that it is not by the addition of the verbs 'be' and 'not be', respectively, that positive and negative
propositions are formed. If the former of these alternatives must be rejected, we must choose the latter.

The contradictory, then, of 'it may be' is 'it cannot be'. The same rule applies to the proposition 'it is
contingent that it should be'; the contradictory of this is 'it is not contingent that it should be'. The similar
propositions, such as 'it is necessary' and 'it is impossible', may be dealt with in the same manner. For it
comes about that just as in the former instances the verbs 'is' and 'is not' were added to the subject-matter of
the sentence 'white' and 'man', so here 'that it should be' and 'that it should not be' are the subject-matter and
'is possible', 'is contingent', are added. These indicate that a certain thing is or is not possible, just as in the
former instances 'is' and 'is not' indicated that certain things were or were not the case.

The contradictory, then, of 'it may not be' is not 'it cannot be', but 'it cannot not be', and the contradictory of 'it
may be' is not 'it may not be', but cannot be'. Thus the propositions 'it may be' and 'it may not be' appear each
to imply the other: for, since these two propositions are not contradictory, the same thing both may and may
not be. But the propositions 'it may be' and 'it cannot be' can never be true of the same subject at the same
time, for they are contradictory. Nor can the propositions 'it may not be' and 'it cannot not be' be at once true
of the same subject.

The propositions which have to do with necessity are governed by the same principle. The contradictory of 'it
is necessary that it should be', is not 'it is necessary that it should not be,' but 'it is not necessary that it should
be', and the contradictory of 'it is necessary that it should not be' is 'it is not necessary that it should not be'.

Again, the contradictory of 'it is impossible that it should be' is not 'it is impossible that it should not be' but 'it
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is not impossible that it should be', and the contradictory of 'it is impossible that it should not be' is 'it is not
impossible that it should not be'.

To generalize, we must, as has been stated, define the clauses 'that it should be' and 'that it should not be' as
the subject-matter of the propositions, and in making these terms into affirmations and denials we must
combine them with 'that it should be' and 'that it should not be' respectively.

We must consider the following pairs as contradictory propositions:

It may be. It cannot be.

It is contingent. It is not contingent.

It is impossible. It is not impossible.

It is necessary. It is not necessary.

It is true. It is not true.

Logical sequences follow in due course when we have arranged the propositions thus. From the proposition
'it may be' it follows that it is contingent, and the relation is reciprocal. It follows also that it is not impossible
and not necessary.

From the proposition 'it may not be' or 'it is contingent that it should not be' it follows that it is not necessary
that it should not be and that it is not impossible that it should not be. From the proposition 'it cannot be' or 'it
is not contingent' it follows that it is necessary that it should not be and that it is impossible that it should be.
From the proposition 'it cannot not be' or 'it is not contingent that it should not be' it follows that it is
necessary that it should be and that it is impossible that it should not be.

Let us consider these statements by the help of a table:

A. B. It may be. It cannot be. It is contingent. It is not contingent. It is not impossible It is impossible that it
that it should be. should be. It is not necessary It is necessary that it that it should be. should not be.

C. D. It may not be. It cannot not be. It is contingent that it It is not contingent that should not be. it should
not be. It is not impossible It is impossible thatit that it should not be. should not be. It is not necessary that It
is necessary that it it should not be. should be.

Now the propositions 'it is impossible that it should be' and 'it is not impossible that it should be' are
consequent upon the propositions 'it may be', 'it is contingent', and 'it cannot be', 'it is not contingent', the
contradictories upon the contradictories. But there is inversion. The negative of the proposition 'it is
impossible' is consequent upon the proposition 'it may be' and the corresponding positive in the first case
upon the negative in the second. For 'it is impossible' is a positive proposition and 'it is not impossible' is
negative.

We must investigate the relation subsisting between these propositions and those which predicate necessity.
That there is a distinction is clear. In this case, contrary propositions follow respectively from contradictory
propositions, and the contradictory propositions belong to separate sequences. For the proposition 'it is not
necessary that it should be' is not the negative of 'it is necessary that it should not be', for both these
propositions may be true of the same subject; for when it is necessary that a thing should not be, it is not
necessary that it should be. The reason why the propositions predicating necessity do not follow in the same
kind of sequence as the rest, lies in the fact that the proposition 'it is impossible' is equivalent, when used with

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a contrary subject, to the proposition 'it is necessary'. For when it is impossible that a thing should be, it is
necessary, not that it should be, but that it should not be, and when it is impossible that a thing should not be,
it is necessary that it should be. Thus, if the propositions predicating impossibility or non-impossibility
follow without change of subject from those predicating possibility or non-possibility, those predicating
necessity must follow with the contrary subject; for the propositions 'it is impossible' and 'it is necessary' are
not equivalent, but, as has been said, inversely connected.

Yet perhaps it is impossible that the contradictory propositions predicating necessity should be thus arranged.
For when it is necessary that a thing should be, it is possible that it should be. (For if not, the opposite
follows, since one or the other must follow; so, if it is not possible, it is impossible, and it is thus impossible
that a thing should be, which must necessarily be; which is absurd.)

Yet from the proposition 'it may be' it follows that it is not impossible, and from that it follows that it is not
necessary; it comes about therefore that the thing which must necessarily be need not be; which is absurd. But
again, the proposition 'it is necessary that it should be' does not follow from the proposition 'it may be', nor
does the proposition 'it is necessary that it should not be'. For the proposition 'it may be' implies a twofold
possibility, while, if either of the two former propositions is true, the twofold possibility vanishes. For if a
thing may be, it may also not be, but if it is necessary that it should be or that it should not be, one of the two
alternatives will be excluded. It remains, therefore, that the proposition 'it is not necessary that it should not
be' follows from the proposition 'it may be'. For this is true also of that which must necessarily be.

Moreover the proposition 'it is not necessary that it should not be' is the contradictory of that which follows
from the proposition 'it cannot be'; for 'it cannot be' is followed by 'it is impossible that it should be' and by 'it
is necessary that it should not be', and the contradictory of this is the proposition 'it is not necessary that it
should not be'. Thus in this case also contradictory propositions follow contradictory in the way indicated,
and no logical impossibilities occur when they are thus arranged.

It may be questioned whether the proposition 'it may be' follows from the proposition 'it is necessary that it
should be'. If not, the contradictory must follow, namely that it cannot be, or, if a man should maintain that
this is not the contradictory, then the proposition 'it may not be'.

Now both of these are false of that which necessarily is. At the same time, it is thought that if a thing may be
cut it may also not be cut, if a thing may be it may also not be, and thus it would follow that a thing which
must necessarily be may possibly not be; which is false. It is evident, then, that it is not always the case that
that which may be or may walk possesses also a potentiality in the other direction. There are exceptions. In
the first place we must except those things which possess a potentiality not in accordance with a rational
principle, as fire possesses the potentiality of giving out heat, that is, an irrational capacity. Those
potentialities which involve a rational principle are potentialities of more than one result, that is, of contrary
results; those that are irrational are not always thus constituted. As I have said, fire cannot both heat and not
heat, neither has anything that is always actual any twofold potentiality. Yet some even of those potentialities
which are irrational admit of opposite results. However, thus much has been said to emphasize the truth that it
is not every potentiality which admits of opposite results, even where the word is used always in the same
sense.

But in some cases the word is used equivocally. For the term 'possible' is ambiguous, being used in the one
case with reference to facts, to that which is actualized, as when a man is said to find walking possible
because he is actually walking, and generally when a capacity is predicated because it is actually realized; in
the other case, with reference to a state in which realization is conditionally practicable, as when a man is said
to find walking possible because under certain conditions he would walk. This last sort of potentiality
belongs only to that which can be in motion, the former can exist also in the case of that which has not this
power. Both of that which is walking and is actual, and of that which has the capacity though not necessarily

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ON INTERPRETATION

realized, it is true to say that it is not impossible that it should walk (or, in the other case, that it should be),
but while we cannot predicate this latter kind of potentiality of that which is necessary in the unqualified
sense of the word, we can predicate the former.

Our conclusion, then, is this: that since the universal is consequent upon the particular, that which is
necessary is also possible, though not in every sense in which the word may be used.

We may perhaps state that necessity and its absence are the initial principles of existence and non-existence,
and that all else must be regarded as posterior to these.

It is plain from what has been said that that which is of necessity is actual. Thus, if that which is eternal is
prior, actuality also is prior to potentiality. Some things are actualities without potentiality, namely, the
primary substances; a second class consists of those things which are actual but also potential, whose
actuality is in nature prior to their potentiality, though posterior in time; a third class comprises those things
which are never actualized, but are pure potentialities.

The question arises whether an affirmation finds its contrary in a denial or in another affirmation; whether the
proposition 'every man is just' finds its contrary in the proposition 'no man is just', or in the proposition 'every
man is unjust'. Take the propositions 'Callias is just', 'Callias is not just', 'Callias is unjust'; we have to
discover which of these form contraries.

Now if the spoken word corresponds with the judgement of the mind, and if, in thought, that judgement is the
contrary of another, which pronounces a contrary fact, in the way, for instance, in which the judgement 'every
man is just' pronounces a contrary to that pronounced by the judgement 'every man is unjust', the same must
needs hold good with regard to spoken affirmations.

But if, in thought, it is not the judgement which pronounces a contrary fact that is the contrary of another,
then one affirmation will not find its contrary in another, but rather in the corresponding denial. We must
therefore consider which true judgement is the contrary of the false, that which forms the denial of the false
judgement or that which affirms the contrary fact.

Let me illustrate. There is a true judgement concerning that which is good, that it is good; another, a false
judgement, that it is not good; and a third, which is distinct, that it is bad. Which of these two is contrary to
the true? And if they are one and the same, which mode of expression forms the contrary?

It is an error to suppose that judgements are to be defined as contrary in virtue of the fact that they have
contrary subjects; for the judgement concerning a good thing, that it is good, and that concerning a bad thing,
that it is bad, may be one and the same, and whether they are so or not, they both represent the truth. Yet the
subjects here are contrary. But judgements are not contrary because they have contrary subjects, but because
they are to the contrary effect.

Now if we take the judgement that that which is good is good, and another that it is not good, and if there are
at the same time other attributes, which do not and cannot belong to the good, we must nevertheless refuse to
treat as the contraries of the true judgement those which opine that some other attribute subsists which does
not subsist, as also those that opine that some other attribute does not subsist which does subsist, for both
these classes of judgement are of unlimited content.

Those judgements must rather be termed contrary to the true judgements, in which error is present. Now these
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judgements are those which are concerned with the starting points of generation, and generation is the passing
from one extreme to its opposite; therefore error is a like transition.

Now that which is good is both good and not bad. The first quality is part of its essence, the second
accidental; for it is by accident that it is not bad. But if that true judgement is most really true, which
concerns the subject's intrinsic nature, then that false judgement likewise is most really false, which concerns
its intrinsic nature. Now the judgement that that is good is not good is a false judgement concerning its
intrinsic nature, the judgement that it is bad is one concerning that which is accidental. Thus the judgement
which denies the true judgement is more really false than that which positively asserts the presence of the
contrary quality. But it is the man who forms that judgement which is contrary to the true who is most
thoroughly deceived, for contraries are among the things which differ most widely within the same class. If
then of the two judgements one is contrary to the true judgement, but that which is contradictory is the more
truly contrary, then the latter, it seems, is the real contrary. The judgement that that which is good is bad is
composite. For presumably the man who forms that judgement must at the same time understand that that
which is good is not good.

Further, the contradictory is either always the contrary or never; therefore, if it must necessarily be so in all
other cases, our conclusion in the case just dealt with would seem to be correct. Now where terms have no
contrary, that judgement is false, which forms the negative of the true; for instance, he who thinks a man is
not a man forms a false judgement. If then in these cases the negative is the contrary, then the principle is
universal in its application.

Again, the judgement that that which is not good is not good is parallel with the judgement that that which is
good is good. Besides these there is the judgement that that which is good is not good, parallel with the
judgement that that that is not good is good. Let us consider, therefore, what would form the contrary of the
true judgement that that which is not good is not good. The judgement that it is bad would, of course, fail to
meet the case, since two true judgements are never contrary and this judgement might be true at the same
time as that with which it is connected. For since some things which are not good are bad, both judgements
may be true. Nor is the judgement that it is not bad the contrary, for this too might be true, since both
qualities might be predicated of the same subject. It remains, therefore, that of the judgement concerning that
which is not good, that it is not good, the contrary judgement is that it is good; for this is false. In the same
way, moreover, the judgement concerning that which is good, that it is not good, is the contrary of the
judgement that it is good.

It is evident that it will make no difference if we universalize the positive judgement, for the universal
negative judgement will form the contrary. For instance, the contrary of the judgement that everything that is
good is good is that nothing that is good is good. For the judgement that that which is good is good, if the
subject be understood in a universal sense, is equivalent to the judgement that whatever is good is good, and
this is identical with the judgement that everything that is good is good. We may deal similarly with
judgements concerning that which is not good.

If therefore this is the rule with judgements, and if spoken affirmations and denials are judgements expressed
in words, it is plain that the universal denial is the contrary of the affirmation about the same subject. Thus
the propositions 'everything good is good', 'every man is good', have for their contraries the propositions
'nothing good is good', 'no man is good'. The contradictory propositions, on the other hand, are 'not
everything good is good', 'not every man is good'.

It is evident, also, that neither true judgements nor true propositions can be contrary the one to the other. For
whereas, when two propositions are true, a man may state both at the same time without inconsistency,
contrary propositions are those which state contrary conditions, and contrary conditions cannot subsist at one
and the same time in the same subject.

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THE END

14 16

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE

by Aristotle

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE

Table of Contents

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE 1

by Aristotle 1

_1 1

2 1

_3 2

_4 2

_5 3

6 4

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE

by Aristotle

translated by G. R. T. Ross

• 1
•2
•3
•4
•5

• (S

THE reasons for some animals being long-lived and others short-lived, and, in a word, causes of the length
and brevity of life call for investigation.

The necessary beginning to our inquiry is a statement of the difficulties about these points. For it is not clear
whether in animals and plants universally it is a single or diverse cause that makes some to be long-lived,
others short-lived. Plants too have in some cases a long life, while in others it lasts but for a year.

Further, in a natural structure are longevity and a sound constitution coincident, or is shortness of life
independent of unhealthiness? Perhaps in the case of certain maladies a diseased state of the body and
shortness of life are interchangeable, while in the case of others ill-health is perfectly compatible with long
life.

Of sleep and waking we have already treated; about life and death we shall speak later on, and likewise about
health and disease, in so far as it belongs to the science of nature to do so. But at present we have to
investigate the causes of some creatures being long-lived, and others short-lived. We find this distinction
affecting not only entire genera opposed as wholes to one another, but applying also to contrasted sets of
individuals within the same species. As an instance of the difference applying to the genus I give man and
horse (for mankind has a longer life than the horse), while within the species there is the difference between
man and man; for of men also some are long-lived, others short-lived, differing from each other in respect of
the different regions in which they dwell. Races inhabiting warm countries have longer life, those living in a
cold climate live a shorter time. Likewise there are similar differences among individuals occupying the same
locality.

In order to find premisses for our argument, we must answer the question, What is that which, in natural
objects, makes them easily destroyed, or the reverse? Since fire and water, and whatsoever is akin thereto, do

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE 1

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE

not possess identical powers they are reciprocal causes of generation and decay. Hence it is natural to infer
that everything else arising from them and composed of them should share in the same nature, in all cases
where things are not, like a house, a composite unity formed by the synthesis of many things.

In other matters a different account must be given; for in many things their mode of dissolution is something
peculiar to themselves, e.g. in knowledge and health and disease. These pass away even though the medium
in which they are found is not destroyed but continues to exist; for example, take the termination of
ignorance, which is recollection or learning, while knowledge passes away into forgetfulness, or error. But
accidentally the disintegration of a natural object is accompanied by the destruction of the non-physical
reality; for, when the animal dies, the health or knowledge resident in it passes away too. Hence from these
considerations we may draw a conclusion about the soul too; for, if the inherence of soul in body is not a
matter of nature but like that of knowledge in the soul, there would be another mode of dissolution pertaining
to it besides that which occurs when the body is destroyed. But since evidently it does not admit of this dual
dissolution, the soul must stand in a different case in respect of its union with the body.

Perhaps one might reasonably raise the question whether there is any place where what is corruptible
becomes incorruptible, as fire does in the upper regions where it meets with no opposite. Opposites destroy
each other, and hence accidentally, by their destruction, whatsoever is attributed to them is destroyed. But no
opposite in a real substance is accidentally destroyed, because real substance is not predicated of any subject.
Hence a thing which has no opposite, or which is situated where it has no opposite, cannot be destroyed. For
what will that be which can destroy it, if destruction comes only through contraries, but no contrary to it
exists either absolutely or in the particular place where it is? But perhaps this is in one sense true, in another
sense not true, for it is impossible that anything containing matter should not have in any sense an opposite.
Heat and straightness can be present in every part of a thing, but it is impossible that the thing should be
nothing but hot or white or straight; for, if that were so, attributes would have an independent existence.
Hence if, in all cases, whenever the active and the passive exist together, the one acts and the other is acted
on, it is impossible that no change should occur. Further, this is so if a waste product is an opposite, and
waste must always be produced; for opposition is always the source of change, and refuse is what remains of
the previous opposite. But, after expelling everything of a nature actually opposed, would an object in this
case also be imperishable? No, it would be destroyed by the environment.

If then that is so, what we have said sufficiently accounts for the change; but, if not, we must assume that
something of actually opposite character is in the changing object, and refuse is produced.

Hence accidentally a lesser flame is consumed by a greater one, for the nutriment, to wit the smoke, which
the former takes a long period to expend, is used up by the big flame quickly.

Hence [too] all things are at all times in a state of transition and are coming into being and passing away. The
environment acts on them either favourably or antagonistically, and, owing to this, things that change their
situation become more or less enduring than their nature warrants, but never are they eternal when they
contain contrary qualities; for their matter is an immediate source of contrariety, so that if it involves locality
they show change of situation, if quantity, increase and diminution, while if it involves qualitative affection
we find alteration of character.

We find that a superior immunity from decay attaches neither to the largest animals (the horse has shorter life
than man) nor to those that are small (for most insects live but for a year). Nor are plants as a whole less

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE

liable to perish than animals (many plants are annuals), nor have sanguineous animals the pre-eminence (for
the bee is longer-lived than certain sanguineous animals). Neither is it the bloodless animals that live longest
(for molluscs live only a year, though bloodless), nor terrestrial organisms (there are both plants and
terrestrial animals of which a single year is the period), nor the occupants of the sea (for there we find the
crustaceans and the molluscs, which are short-lived).

Speaking generally, the longest-lived things occur among the plants, e.g. the date-palm. Next in order we
find them among the sanguineous animals rather than among the bloodless, and among those with feet rather
than among the denizens of the water. Hence, taking these two characters together, the longest-lived animals
fall among sanguineous animals which have feet, e.g. man and elephant. As a matter of fact also it is a
general rule that the larger live longer than the smaller, for the other long-lived animals too happen to be of a
large size, as are also those I have mentioned.

The following considerations may enable us to understand the reasons for all these facts. We must remember
that an animal is by nature humid and warm, and to live is to be of such a constitution, while old age is dry
and cold, and so is a corpse. This is plain to observation. But the material constituting the bodies of all things
consists of the following-the hot and the cold, the dry and the moist. Hence when they age they must become
dry, and therefore the fluid in them requires to be not easily dried up. Thus we explain why fat things are not
liable to decay. The reason is that they contain air; now air relatively to the other elements is fire, and fire
never becomes corrupted.

Again the humid element in animals must not be small in quantity, for a small quantity is easily dried up.
This is why both plants and animals that are large are, as a general rule, longer-lived than the rest, as was
said before; it is to be expected that the larger should contain more moisture. But it is not merely this that
makes them longer lived; for the cause is twofold, to wit, the quality as well as the quantity of the fluid.
Hence the moisture must be not only great in amount but also warm, in order to be neither easily congealed
nor easily dried up.

It is for this reason also that man lives longer than some animals which are larger; for animals live longer
though there is a deficiency in the amount of their moisture, if the ratio of its qualitative superiority exceeds
that of its quantitative deficiency.

In some creatures the warm element is their fatty substance, which prevents at once desiccation and
congelation; but in others it assumes a different flavour. Further, that which is designed to be not easily
destroyed should not yield waste products. Anything of such a nature causes death either by disease or
naturally, for the potency of the waste product works adversely and destroys now the entire constitution, now
a particular member.

This is why salacious animals and those abounding in seed age quickly; the seed is a residue, and further, by
being lost, it produces dryness. Hence the mule lives longer than either the horse or the ass from which it
sprang, and females live longer than males if the males are salacious. Accordingly cock-sparrows have a
shorter life than the females. Again males subject to great toil are short-lived and age more quickly owing to
the labour; toil produces dryness and old age is dry. But by natural constitution and as a general rule males
live longer than females, and the reason is that the male is an animal with more warmth than the female.

The same kind of animals are longer-lived in warm than in cold climates for the same reason, on account of
which they are of larger size. The size of animals of cold constitution illustrates this particularly well, and
hence snakes and lizards and scaly reptiles are of great size in warm localities, as also are testacea in the Red

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE

Sea: the warm humidity there is the cause equally of their augmented size and of their life. But in cold
countries the humidity in animals is more of a watery nature, and hence is readily congealed. Consequently it
happens that animals with little or no blood are in northerly regions either entirely absent (both the land
animals with feet and the water creatures whose home is the sea) or, when they do occur, they are smaller and
have shorter life; for the frost prevents growth.

Both plants and animals perish if not fed, for in that case they consume themselves; just as a large flame
consumes and burns up a small one by using up its nutriment, so the natural warmth which is the primary
cause of digestion consumes the material in which it is located.

Water animals have a shorter life than terrestrial creatures, not strictly because they are humid, but because
they are watery, and watery moisture is easily destroyed, since it is cold and readily congealed. For the same
reason bloodless animals perish readily unless protected by great size, for there is neither fatness nor
sweetness about them. In animals fat is sweet, and hence bees are longer-lived than other animals of larger
size.

It is amongst the plants that we find the longest life-more than among the animals, for, in the first place, they
are less watery and hence less easily frozen. Further they have an oiliness and a viscosity which makes them
retain their moisture in a form not easily dried up, even though they are dry and earthy.

But we must discover the reason why trees are of an enduring constitution, for it is peculiar to them and is not
found in any animals except the insects.

Plants continually renew themselves and hence last for a long time. New shoots continually come and the
others grow old, and with the roots the same thing happens. But both processes do not occur together. Rather
it happens that at one time the trunk and the branches alone die and new ones grow up beside them, and it is
only when this has taken place that the fresh roots spring from the surviving part. Thus it continues, one part
dying and the other growing, and hence also it lives a long time.

There is a similarity, as has been already said, between plants and insects, for they live, though divided, and
two or more may be derived from a single one. Insects, however, though managing to live, are not able to do
so long, for they do not possess organs; nor can the principle resident in each of the separated parts create
organs. In the case of a plant, however, it can do so; every part of a plant contains potentially both root and
stem. Hence it is from this source that issues that continued growth when one part is renewed and the other
grows old; it is practically a case of longevity. The taking of slips furnishes a similar instance, for we might
say that, in a way, when we take a slip the same thing happens; the shoot cut off is part of the plant. Thus in
taking slips this perpetuation of life occurs though their connexion with the plant is severed, but in the former
case it is the continuity that is operative. The reason is that the life principle potentially belonging to them is
present in every part.

Identical phenomena are found both in plants and in animals. For in animals the males are, in general, the
longer-lived. They have their upper parts larger than the lower (the male is more of the dwarf type of build
than the female), and it is in the upper part that warmth resides, in the lower cold. In plants also those with
great heads are longer-lived, and such are those that are not annual but of the tree-type, for the roots are the
head and upper part of a plant, and among the annuals growth occurs in the direction of their lower parts and
the fruit.

These matters however will be specially investigated in the work On Plants. But this is our account of the

ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE

reasons for the duration of life and for short life in animals. It remains for us to discuss youth and age, and
life and death. To come to a definite understanding about these matters would complete our course of study
on animals.

-THE END-

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

by Aristotle

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

Table of Contents

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE. 1

by Aristotle 1

_1 1

2 3

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

by Aristotle

translated by J. I. Beare

• 1

• 2

WE have, in the next place, to treat of Memory and Remembering, considering its nature, its cause, and the
part of the soul to which this experience, as well as that of Recollecting, belongs. For the persons who
possess a retentive memory are not identical with those who excel in power of recollection; indeed, as a rule,
slow people have a good memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are better at recollecting.

We must first form a true conception of these objects of memory, a point on which mistakes are often made.
Now to remember the future is not possible, but this is an object of opinion or expectation (and indeed there
might be actually a science of expectation, like that of divination, in which some believe); nor is there
memory of the present, but only sense-perception. For by the latter we know not the future, nor the past, but
the present only. But memory relates to the past. No one would say that he remembers the present, when it is
present, e.g. a given white object at the moment when he sees it; nor would one say that he remembers an
object of scientific contemplation at the moment when he is actually contemplating it, and has it full before
his mind;-of the former he would say only that he perceives it, of the latter only that he knows it. But when
one has scientific knowledge, or perception, apart from the actualizations of the faculty concerned, he thus
'remembers' (that the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles); as to the former, that he
learned it, or thought it out for himself, as to the latter, that he heard, or saw, it, or had some such sensible
experience of it. For whenever one exercises the faculty of remembering, he must say within himself, 'I
formerly heard (or otherwise perceived) this,' or 'I formerly had this thought'.

Memory is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned
by lapse of time. As already observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present while present, for the
present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All
memory, therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time remember,
and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they remember.

The subject of 'presentation' has been already considered in our work On the Soul. Without a presentation
intellectual activity is impossible. For there is in such activity an incidental affection identical with one also
incidental in geometrical demonstrations. For in the latter case, though we do not for the purpose of the proof
make any use of the fact that the quantity in the triangle (for example, which we have drawn) is determinate,
we nevertheless draw it determinate in quantity. So likewise when one exerts the intellect (e.g. on the subject
of first principles), although the object may not be quantitative, one envisages it as quantitative, though he

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE 1

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

thinks it in abstraction from quantity; while, on the other hand, if the object of the intellect is essentially of
the class of things that are quantitative, but indeterminate, one envisages it as if it had determinate quantity,
though subsequently, in thinking it, he abstracts from its determinateness. Why we cannot exercise the
intellect on any object absolutely apart from the continuous, or apply it even to non-temporal things unless in
connexion with time, is another question. Now, one must cognize magnitude and motion by means of the
same faculty by which one cognizes time (i.e. by that which is also the faculty of memory), and the
presentation (involved in such cognition) is an affection of the sensus communis; whence this follows, viz.
that the cognition of these objects (magnitude, motion time) is effected by the (said sensus communis, i.e.
the) primary faculty of perception. Accordingly, memory (not merely of sensible, but) even of intellectual
objects involves a presentation: hence we may conclude that it belongs to the faculty of intelligence only
incidentally, while directly and essentially it belongs to the primary faculty of sense-perception.

Hence not only human beings and the beings which possess opinion or intelligence, but also certain other
animals, possess memory. If memory were a function of (pure) intellect, it would not have been as it is an
attribute of many of the lower animals, but probably, in that case, no mortal beings would have had memory;
since, even as the case stands, it is not an attribute of them all, just because all have not the faculty of
perceiving time. Whenever one actually remembers having seen or heard, or learned, something, he includes
in this act (as we have already observed) the consciousness of 'formerly'; and the distinction of 'former' and
'latter' is a distinction in time.

Accordingly if asked, of which among the parts of the soul memory is a function, we reply: manifestly of that
part to which 'presentation' appertains; and all objects capable of being presented (viz. aistheta) are
immediately and properly objects of memory, while those (viz. noeta) which necessarily involve (but only
involve) presentation are objects of memory incidentally.

One might ask how it is possible that though the affection (the presentation) alone is present, and the (related)
fact absent, the latter-that which is not present-is remembered. (The question arises), because it is clear that
we must conceive that which is generated through sense-perception in the sentient soul, and in the part of the
body which is its seat-viz. that affection the state whereof we call memory-to be some such thing as a
picture. The process of movement (sensory stimulation) involved the act of perception stamps in, as it were, a
sort of impression of the percept, just as persons do who make an impression with a seal. This explains why,
in those who are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no mnemonic impression is formed; just as
no impression would be formed if the movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there
are others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as happens to (the stucco on) old (chamber)
walls, or owing to the hardness of the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all.
Hence both very young and very old persons are defective in memory; they are in a state of flux, the former
because of their growth, the latter, owing to their decay. In like manner, also, both those who are too quick
and those who are too slow have bad memories. The former are too soft, the latter too hard (in the texture of
their receiving organs), so that in the case of the former the presented image (though imprinted) does not
remain in the soul, while on the latter it is not imprinted at all.

But then, if this truly describes what happens in the genesis of memory, (the question stated above arises:)
when one remembers, is it this impressed affection that he remembers, or is it the objective thing from which
this was derived? If the former, it would follow that we remember nothing which is absent; if the latter, how
is it possible that, though perceiving directly only the impression, we remember that absent thing which we
do not perceive? Granted that there is in us something like an impression or picture, why should the
perception of the mere impression be memory of something else, instead of being related to this impression
alone? For when one actually remembers, this impression is what he contemplates, and this is what he
perceives. How then does he remember what is not present? One might as well suppose it possible also to see
or hear that which is not present. In reply, we suggest that this very thing is quite conceivable, nay, actually
occurs in experience. A picture painted on a panel is at once a picture and a likeness: that is, while one and

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE 2

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

the same, it is both of these, although the 'being' of both is not the same, and one may contemplate it either as
a picture, or as a likeness. Just in the same way we have to conceive that the mnemonic presentation within us
is something which by itself is merely an object of contemplation, while, in-relation to something else, it is
also a presentation of that other thing. In so far as it is regarded in itself, it is only an object of contemplation,
or a presentation; but when considered as relative to something else, e.g. as its likeness, it is also a mnemonic
token. Hence, whenever the residual sensory process implied by it is actualized in consciousness, if the soul
perceives this in so far as it is something absolute, it appears to occur as a mere thought or presentation; but if
the soul perceives it qua related to something else, then,-just as when one contemplates the painting in the
picture as being a likeness, and without having (at the moment) seen the actual Koriskos, contemplates it as a
likeness of Koriskos, and in that case the experience involved in this contemplation of it (as relative) is
different from what one has when he contemplates it simply as a painted figure-(so in the case of memory we
have the analogous difference for), of the objects in the soul, the one (the unrelated object) presents itself
simply as a thought, but the other (the related object) just because, as in the painting, it is a likeness, presents
itself as a mnemonic token.

We can now understand why it is that sometimes, when we have such processes, based on some former act of
perception, occurring in the soul, we do not know whether this really implies our having had perceptions
corresponding to them, and we doubt whether the case is or is not one of memory. But occasionally it
happens that (while thus doubting) we get a sudden idea and recollect that we heard or saw something
formerly. This (occurrence of the 'sudden idea') happens whenever, from contemplating a mental object as
absolute, one changes his point of view, and regards it as relative to something else.

The opposite (sc. to the case of those who at first do not recognize their phantasms as mnemonic) also occurs,
as happened in the cases of Antipheron of Oreus and others suffering from mental derangement; for they
were accustomed to speak of their mere phantasms as facts of their past experience, and as if remembering
them. This takes place whenever one contemplates what is not a likeness as if it were a likeness.

Mnemonic exercises aim at preserving one's memory of something by repeatedly reminding him of it; which
implies nothing else (on the learner's part) than the frequent contemplation of something (viz. the 'mnemonic',
whatever it may be) as a likeness, and not as out of relation.

As regards the question, therefore, what memory or remembering is, it has now been shown that it is the state
of a presentation, related as a likeness to that of which it is a presentation; and as to the question of which of
the faculties within us memory is a function, (it has been shown) that it is a function of the primary faculty of
sense-perception, i.e. of that faculty whereby we perceive time.

Next comes the subject of Recollection, in dealing with which we must assume as fundamental the truths
elicited above in our introductory discussions. For recollection is not the 'recovery' or 'acquisition' of
memory; since at the instant when one at first learns (a fact of science) or experiences (a particular fact of
sense), he does not thereby 'recover' a memory, inasmuch as none has preceded, nor does he acquire one ab
initio. It is only at the instant when the aforesaid state or affection (of the aisthesis or upolepsis) is implanted
in the soul that memory exists, and therefore memory is not itself implanted concurrently with the continuous
implantation of the (original) sensory experience.

Further: at the very individual and concluding instant when first (the sensory experience or scientific
knowledge) has been completely implanted, there is then already established in the person affected the
(sensory) affection, or the scientific knowledge (if one ought to apply the term 'scientific knowledge' to the
(mnemonic) state or affection; and indeed one may well remember, in the 'incidental' sense, some of the

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

things (i.e. ta katholou) which are properly objects of scientific knowledge); but to remember, strictly and
properly speaking, is an activity which will not be immanent until the original experience has undergone
lapse of time. For one remembers now what one saw or otherwise experienced formerly; the moment of the
original experience and the moment of the memory of it are never identical.

Again, (even when time has elapsed, and one can be said really to have acquired memory, this is not
necessarily recollection, for firstly) it is obviously possible, without any present act of recollection, to
remember as a continued consequence of the original perception or other experience; whereas when (after an
interval of obliviscence) one recovers some scientific knowledge which he had before, or some perception, or
some other experience, the state of which we above declared to be memory, it is then, and then only, that this
recovery may amount to a recollection of any of the things aforesaid. But, (though as observed above,
remembering does not necessarily imply recollecting), recollecting always implies remembering, and
actualized memory follows (upon the successful act of recollecting).

But secondly, even the assertion that recollection is the reinstatement in consciousness of something which
was there before but had disappeared requires qualification. This assertion may be true, but it may also be
false; for the same person may twice learn (from some teacher), or twice discover (i.e. excogitate), the same
fact. Accordingly, the act of recollecting ought (in its definition) to be distinguished from these acts; i.e.
recollecting must imply in those who recollect the presence of some spring over and above that from which
they originally learn.

Acts of recollection, as they occur in experience, are due to the fact that one movement has by nature another
that succeeds it in regular order.

If this order be necessary, whenever a subject experiences the former of two movements thus connected, it
will (invariably) experience the latter; if, however, the order be not necessary, but customary, only in the
majority of cases will the subject experience the latter of the two movements. But it is a fact that there are
some movements, by a single experience of which persons take the impress of custom more deeply than they
do by experiencing others many times; hence upon seeing some things but once we remember them better
than others which we may have been frequently.

Whenever therefore, we are recollecting, we are experiencing certain of the antecedent movements until
finally we experience the one after which customarily comes that which we seek. This explains why we hunt
up the series (of kineseis) having started in thought either from a present intuition or some other, and from
something either similar, or contrary, to what we seek, or else from that which is contiguous with it. Such is
the empirical ground of the process of recollection; for the mnemonic movements involved in these
starting-points are in some cases identical, in others, again, simultaneous, with those of the idea we seek,
while in others they comprise a portion of them, so that the remnant which one experienced after that portion
(and which still requires to be excited in memory) is comparatively small.

Thus, then, it is that persons seek to recollect, and thus, too, it is that they recollect even without the effort of
seeking to do so, viz. when the movement implied in recollection has supervened on some other which is its
condition. For, as a rule, it is when antecedent movements of the classes here described have first been
excited, that the particular movement implied in recollection follows. We need not examine a series of which
the beginning and end lie far apart, in order to see how (by recollection) we remember; one in which they lie
near one another will serve equally well. For it is clear that the method is in each case the same, that is, one
hunts up the objective series, without any previous search or previous recollection. For (there is, besides the
natural order, viz. the order of the pralmata, or events of the primary experience, also a customary order, and)
by the effect of custom the mnemonic movements tend to succeed one another in a certain order.
Accordingly, therefore, when one wishes to recollect, this is what he will do: he will try to obtain a beginning
of movement whose sequel shall be the movement which he desires to reawaken. This explains why attempts

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

at recollection succeed soonest and best when they start from a beginning (of some objective series). For, in
order of succession, the mnemonic movements are to one another as the objective facts (from which they are
derived). Accordingly, things arranged in a fixed order, like the successive demonstrations in geometry, are
easy to remember (or recollect) while badly arranged subjects are remembered with difficulty.

Recollecting differs also in this respect from relearning, that one who recollects will be able, somehow, to
move, solely by his own effort, to the term next after the starting-point. When one cannot do this of himself,
but only by external assistance, he no longer remembers (i.e. he has totally forgotten, and therefore of course
cannot recollect). It often happens that, though a person cannot recollect at the moment, yet by seeking he can
do so, and discovers what he seeks. This he succeeds in doing by setting up many movements, until finally he
excites one of a kind which will have for its sequel the fact he wishes to recollect. For remembering (which is
the condicio sine qua non of recollecting) is the existence, potentially, in the mind of a movement capable of
stimulating it to the desired movement, and this, as has been said, in such a way that the person should be
moved (prompted to recollection) from within himself, i.e. in consequence of movements wholly contained
within himself.

But one must get hold of a starting-point. This explains why it is that persons are supposed to recollect
sometimes by starting from mnemonic loci. The cause is that they pass swiftly in thought from one point to
another, e.g. from milk to white, from white to mist, and thence to moist, from which one remembers Autumn
(the 'season of mists'), if this be the season he is trying to recollect.

It seems true in general that the middle point also among all things is a good mnemonic starting-point from
which to reach any of them. For if one does not recollect before, he will do so when he has come to this, or, if
not, nothing can help him; as, e.g. if one were to have in mind the numerical series denoted by the symbols A,
B, G, D, E, Z, I, H, O. For, if he does not remember what he wants at E, then at E he remembers O; because
from E movement in either direction is possible, to D or to Z. But, if it is not for one of these that he is
searching, he will remember (what he is searching for) when he has come to G if he is searching for H or I.
But if (it is) not (for H or I that he is searching, but for one of the terms that remain), he will remember by
going to A, and so in all cases (in which one starts from a middle point). The cause of one's sometimes
recollecting and sometimes not, though starting from the same point, is, that from the same starting-point a
movement can be made in several directions, as, for instance, from G to I or to D. If, then, the mind has not
(when starting from E) moved in an old path (i.e. one in which it moved first having the objective experience,
and that, therefore, in which un-'ethized' phusis would have it again move), it tends to move to the more
customary; for (the mind having, by chance or otherwise, missed moving in the 'old' way) Custom now
assumes the role of Nature. Hence the rapidity with which we recollect what we frequently think about. For
as regular sequence of events is in accordance with nature, so, too, regular sequence is observed in the
actualization of kinesis (in consciousness), and here frequency tends to produce (the regularity of) nature.
And since in the realm of nature occurrences take place which are even contrary to nature, or fortuitous, the
same happens a fortiori in the sphere swayed by custom, since in this sphere natural law is not similarly
established. Hence it is that (from the same starting-point) the mind receives an impulse to move sometimes
in the required direction, and at other times otherwise, (doing the latter) particularly when something else
somehow deflects the mind from the right direction and attracts it to itself. This last consideration explains
too how it happens that, when we want to remember a name, we remember one somewhat like it, indeed, but
blunder in reference to (i.e. in pronouncing) the one we intended.

Thus, then, recollection takes place.

But the point of capital importance is that (for the purpose of recollection) one should cognize, determinately
or indeterminately, the time-relation (of that which he wishes to recollect). There is,— let it be taken as a
fact,-something by which one distinguishes a greater and a smaller time; and it is reasonable to think that one
does this in a way analogous to that in which one discerns (spacial) magnitudes. For it is not by the mind's

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

reaching out towards them, as some say a visual ray from the eye does (in seeing), that one thinks of large
things at a distance in space (for even if they are not there, one may similarly think them); but one does so by
a proportionate mental movement. For there are in the mind the like figures and movements (i.e. 'like' to
those of objects and events). Therefore, when one thinks the greater objects, in what will his thinking those
differ from his thinking the smaller? (In nothing,) because all the internal though smaller are as it were
proportional to the external. Now, as we may assume within a person something proportional to the forms (of
distant magnitudes), so, too, we may doubtless assume also something else proportional to their distances.
As, therefore, if one has (psychically) the movement in AB, BE, he constructs in thought (i.e. knows
objectively) GD, since AG and GD bear equal ratios respectively (to AB and BE), (so he who recollects also
proceeds). Why then does he construct GD rather than ZH? Is it not because as AG is to AB, so is O to I?
These movements therefore (sc. in AB, BE, and in 0:1) he has simultaneously. But if he wishes to construct
to thought ZH, he has in mind BE in like manner as before (when constructing GD), but now, instead of (the
movements of the ratio) 0:1, he has in mind (those of the ratio K:L; for K:L::ZA:BA. (See diagram.)

When, therefore, the 'movement' corresponding to the object and that corresponding to its time concur, then
one actually remembers. If one supposes (himself to move in these different but concurrent ways) without
really doing so, he supposes himself to remember.

For one may be mistaken, and think that he remembers when he really does not. But it is not possible,
conversely, that when one actually remembers he should not suppose himself to remember, but should
remember unconsciously. For remembering, as we have conceived it, essentially implies consciousness of
itself. If, however, the movement corresponding to the objective fact takes place without that corresponding
to the time, or, if the latter takes place without the former, one does not remember.

The movement answering to the time is of two kinds. Sometimes in remembering a fact one has no
determinate time-notion of it, no such notion as that e.g. he did something or other on the day before
yesterday; while in other cases he has a determinate notion-of the time. Still, even though one does not
remember with actual determination of the time, he genuinely remembers, none the less. Persons are wont to
say that they remember (something), but yet do not know when (it occurred, as happens) whenever they do
not know determinately the exact length of time implied in the 'when'.

It has been already stated that those who have a good memory are not identical with those who are quick at
recollecting. But the act of recollecting differs from that of remembering, not only chronologically, but also
in this, that many also of the other animals (as well as man) have memory, but, of all that we are acquainted
with, none, we venture to say, except man, shares in the faculty of recollection. The cause of this is that
recollection is, as it were a mode of inference. For he who endeavours to recollect infers that he formerly
saw, or heard, or had some such experience, and the process (by which he succeeds in recollecting) is, as it
were, a sort of investigation. But to investigate in this way belongs naturally to those animals alone which are
also endowed with the faculty of deliberation; (which proves what was said above), for deliberation is a form
of inference.

That the affection is corporeal, i.e. that recollection is a searching for an 'image' in a corporeal substrate, is
proved by the fact that in some persons, when, despite the most strenuous application of thought, they have
been unable to recollect, it (viz. the anamnesis = the effort at recollection) excites a feeling of discomfort,
which, even though they abandon the effort at recollection, persists in them none the less; and especially in
persons of melancholic temperament. For these are most powerfully moved by presentations. The reason why
the effort of recollection is not under the control of their will is that, as those who throw a stone cannot stop it
at their will when thrown, so he who tries to recollect and 'hunts' (after an idea) sets up a process in a material
part, (that) in which resides the affection. Those who have moisture around that part which is the centre of
sense-perception suffer most discomfort of this kind. For when once the moisture has been set in motion it is
not easily brought to rest, until the idea which was sought for has again presented itself, and thus the

ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

movement has found a straight course. For a similar reason bursts of anger or fits of terror, when once they
have excited such motions, are not at once allayed, even though the angry or terrified persons (by efforts of
will) set up counter motions, but the passions continue to move them on, in the same direction as at first, in
opposition to such counter motions. The affection resembles also that in the case of words, tunes, or sayings,
whenever one of them has become inveterate on the lips. People give them up and resolve to avoid them; yet
again they find themselves humming the forbidden air, or using the prohibited word. Those whose upper
parts are abnormally large, as. is the case with dwarfs, have abnormally weak memory, as compared with
their opposites, because of the great weight which they have resting upon the organ of perception, and
because their mnemonic movements are, from the very first, not able to keep true to a course, but are
dispersed, and because, in the effort at recollection, these movements do not easily find a direct onward path.
Infants and very old persons have bad memories, owing to the amount of movement going on within them;
for the latter are in process of rapid decay, the former in process of vigorous growth; and we may add that
children, until considerably advanced in years, are dwarf-like in their bodily structure. Such then is our
theory as regards memory and remembering their nature, and the particular organ of the soul by which
animals remember; also as regards recollection, its formal definition, and the manner and causes-of its
performance.

-THE END-

Metaphysics

Aristotle

Metaphysics

Table of Contents

Metaphysics. 1

Aristotle 1

Metaphysics

Aristotle

translated by W. D. Ross

• Book I

• Book II

• Book III

• Book IV

• Book V

• Book VI

• Book VII

• Book VIII

• Book IX

• Book X

• Book XI

• Book XII

• Book XIII

• Book XIV

Book I

ALL men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart
from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with
a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to
everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many
differences between things.

By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced in some of
them, though not in others. And therefore the former are more intelligent and apt at learning than those which
cannot remember; those which are incapable of hearing sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught,
e.g. the bee, and any other race of animals that may be like it; and those which besides memory have this
sense of hearing can be taught.

The animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience;
but the human race lives also by art and reasonings. Now from memory experience is produced in men; for
the several memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience. And experience
seems pretty much like science and art, but really science and art come to men through experience; for
'experience made art', as Polus says, 'but inexperience luck.' Now art arises when from many notions gained
by experience one universal judgement about a class of objects is produced. For to have a judgement that
when Callias was ill of this disease this did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and in many
individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it has done good to all persons of a certain
constitution, marked off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g. to phlegmatic or bilious people
when burning with fevers-this is a matter of art.

With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even
better than those who have theory without experience. (The reason is that experience is knowledge of
individuals, art of universals, and actions and productions are all concerned with the individual; for the
physician does not cure man, except in an incidental way, but Callias or Socrates or some other called by

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some such individual name, who happens to be a man. If, then, a man has the theory without the experience,
and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure; for it
is the individual that is to be cured.) But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather
than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience (which implies that Wisdom
depends in all cases rather on knowledge); and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not.
For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the 'why' and
the cause. Hence we think also that the masterworkers in each craft are more honourable and know in a truer
sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they know the causes of the things that are done (we
think the manual workers are like certain lifeless things which act indeed, but act without knowing what they
do, as fire burns,-but while the lifeless things perform each of their functions by a natural tendency, the
labourers perform them through habit); thus we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being able to act,
but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the causes. And in general it is a sign of the man who
knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach, and therefore we think art more truly
knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and men of mere experience cannot.

Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge
of particulars. But they do not tell us the 'why' of anything-e.g. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.

At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally
admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought
wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of
life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors
of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all such inventions
were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were
discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts
were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure.

We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but
the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first
causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be
wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience, the
masterworker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom
than the productive. Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes.

Since we are seeking this knowledge, we must inquire of what kind are the causes and the principles, the
knowledge of which is Wisdom. If one were to take the notions we have about the wise man, this might
perhaps make the answer more evident. We suppose first, then, that the wise man knows all things, as far as
possible, although he has not knowledge of each of them in detail; secondly, that he who can learn things that
are difficult, and not easy for man to know, is wise (sense-perception is common to all, and therefore easy
and no mark of Wisdom); again, that he who is more exact and more capable of teaching the causes is wiser,
in every branch of knowledge; and that of the sciences, also, that which is desirable on its own account and
for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of Wisdom than that which is desirable on account of its
results, and the superior science is more of the nature of Wisdom than the ancillary; for the wise man must
not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him.

Such and so many are the notions, then, which we have about Wisdom and the wise. Now of these
characteristics that of knowing all things must belong to him who has in the highest degree universal
knowledge; for he knows in a sense all the instances that fall under the universal. And these things, the most
universal, are on the whole the hardest for men to know; for they are farthest from the senses. And the most
exact of the sciences are those which deal most with first principles; for those which involve fewer principles
are more exact than those which involve additional principles, e.g. arithmetic than geometry. But the science

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which investigates causes is also instructive, in a higher degree, for the people who instruct us are those who
tell the causes of each thing. And understanding and knowledge pursued for their own sake are found most in
the knowledge of that which is most knowable (for he who chooses to know for the sake of knowing will
choose most readily that which is most truly knowledge, and such is the knowledge of that which is most
knowable); and the first principles and the causes are most knowable; for by reason of these, and from these,
all other things come to be known, and not these by means of the things subordinate to them. And the science
which knows to what end each thing must be done is the most authoritative of the sciences, and more
authoritative than any ancillary science; and this end is the good of that thing, and in general the supreme
good in the whole of nature. Judged by all the tests we have mentioned, then, the name in question falls to the
same science; this must be a science that investigates the first principles and causes; for the good, i.e. the end,
is one of the causes.

That it is not a science of production is clear even from the history of the earliest philosophers. For it is owing
to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the
obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about
the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a
man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover
of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order to escape from
ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. And this is
confirmed by the facts; for it was when almost all the necessities of life and the things that make for comfort
and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge began to be sought. Evidently then we do not seek it
for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for
another's, so we pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake.

Hence also the possession of it might be justly regarded as beyond human power; for in many ways human
nature is in bondage, so that according to Simonides 'God alone can have this privilege', and it is unfitting
that man should not be content to seek the knowledge that is suited to him. If, then, there is something in
what the poets say, and jealousy is natural to the divine power, it would probably occur in this case above all,
and all who excelled in this knowledge would be unfortunate. But the divine power cannot be jealous (nay,
according to the proverb, 'bards tell a lie'), nor should any other science be thought more honourable than one
of this sort. For the most divine science is also most honourable; and this science alone must be, in two ways,
most divine. For the science which it would be most meet for God to have is a divine science, and so is any
science that deals with divine objects; and this science alone has both these qualities; for (1) God is thought
to be among the causes of all things and to be a first principle, and (2) such a science either God alone can
have, or God above all others. All the sciences, indeed, are more necessary than this, but none is better.

Yet the acquisition of it must in a sense end in something which is the opposite of our original inquiries. For
all men begin, as we said, by wondering that things are as they are, as they do about self-moving
marionettes, or about the solstices or the incommensurability of the diagonal of a square with the side; for it
seems wonderful to all who have not yet seen the reason, that there is a thing which cannot be measured even
by the smallest unit. But we must end in the contrary and, according to the proverb, the better state, as is the
case in these instances too when men learn the cause; for there is nothing which would surprise a geometer so
much as if the diagonal turned out to be commensurable.

We have stated, then, what is the nature of the science we are searching for, and what is the mark which our
search and our whole investigation must reach.

Evidently we have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for we say we know each thing only when we
think we recognize its first cause), and causes are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we mean the
substance, i.e. the essence (for the 'why' is reducible finally to the definition, and the ultimate 'why' is a cause
and principle); in another the matter or substratum, in a third the source of the change, and in a fourth the

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cause opposed to this, the purpose and the good (for this is the end of all generation and change). We have
studied these causes sufficiently in our work on nature, but yet let us call to our aid those who have attacked
the investigation of being and philosophized about reality before us. For obviously they too speak of certain
principles and causes; to go over their views, then, will be of profit to the present inquiry, for we shall either
find another kind of cause, or be more convinced of the correctness of those which we now maintain.

Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which were of the nature of matter were the only
principles of all things. That of which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be, the last
into which they are resolved (the substance remaining, but changing in its modifications), this they say is the
element and this the principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is either generated or destroyed,
since this sort of entity is always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be absolutely when he
comes to be beautiful or musical, nor ceases to be when loses these characteristics, because the substratum,
Socrates himself remains, just so they say nothing else comes to be or ceases to be; for there must be some
entity-either one or more than one-from which all other things come to be, it being conserved.

Yet they do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these principles. Thales, the founder of this type
of philosophy, says the principle is water (for which reason he declared that the earth rests on water), getting
the notion perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from
the moist and kept alive by it (and that from which they come to be is a principle of all things). He got his
notion from this fact, and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature, and that water is the
origin of the nature of moist things.

Some think that even the ancients who lived long before the present generation, and first framed accounts of
the gods, had a similar view of nature; for they made Ocean and Tethys the parents of creation, and described
the oath of the gods as being by water, to which they give the name of Styx; for what is oldest is most
honourable, and the most honourable thing is that by which one swears. It may perhaps be uncertain whether
this opinion about nature is primitive and ancient, but Thales at any rate is said to have declared himself thus
about the first cause. Hippo no one would think fit to include among these thinkers, because of the paltriness
of his thought.

Anaximenes and Diogenes make air prior to water, and the most primary of the simple bodies, while
Hippasus of Metapontium and Heraclitus of Ephesus say this of fire, and Empedocles says it of the four
elements (adding a fourth-earth-to those which have been named); for these, he says, always remain and do
not come to be, except that they come to be more or fewer, being aggregated into one and segregated out of
one.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, though older than Empedocles, was later in his philosophical activity, says
the principles are infinite in number; for he says almost all the things that are made of parts like themselves,
in the manner of water or fire, are generated and destroyed in this way, only by aggregation and segregation,
and are not in any other sense generated or destroyed, but remain eternally.

From these facts one might think that the only cause is the so-called material cause; but as men thus
advanced, the very facts opened the way for them and joined in forcing them to investigate the subject.
However true it may be that all generation and destruction proceed from some one or (for that matter) from
more elements, why does this happen and what is the cause? For at least the substratum itself does not make
itself change; e.g. neither the wood nor the bronze causes the change of either of them, nor does the wood
manufacture a bed and the bronze a statue, but something else is the cause of the change. And to seek this is
to seek the second cause, as we should say,-that from which comes the beginning of the movement. Now
those who at the very beginning set themselves to this kind of inquiry, and said the substratum was one, were
not at all dissatisfied with themselves; but some at least of those who maintain it to be one- as though
defeated by this search for the second cause-say the one and nature as a whole is unchangeable not only in

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respect of generation and destruction (for this is a primitive belief, and all agreed in it), but also of all other
change; and this view is peculiar to them. Of those who said the universe was one, then none succeeded in
discovering a cause of this sort, except perhaps Parmenides, and he only inasmuch as he supposes that there
is not only one but also in some sense two causes. But for those who make more elements it is more possible
to state the second cause, e.g. for those who make hot and cold, or fire and earth, the elements; for they treat
fire as having a nature which fits it to move things, and water and earth and such things they treat in the
contrary way.

When these men and the principles of this kind had had their day, as the latter were found inadequate to
generate the nature of things men were again forced by the truth itself, as we said, to inquire into the next
kind of cause. For it is not likely either that fire or earth or any such element should be the reason why things
manifest goodness and, beauty both in their being and in their coming to be, or that those thinkers should
have supposed it was; nor again could it be right to entrust so great a matter to spontaneity and chance. When
one man said, then, that reason was present-as in animals, so throughout nature-as the cause of order and of
all arrangement, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors. We know
that Anaxagoras certainly adopted these views, but Hermotimus of Clazomenae is credited with expressing
them earlier. Those who thought thus stated that there is a principle of things which is at the same time the
cause of beauty, and that sort of cause from which things acquire movement.

One might suspect that Hesiod was the first to look for such a thing-or some one else who put love or desire
among existing things as a principle, as Parmenides, too, does; for he, in constructing the genesis of the
universe, says:-

Love first of all the Gods she planned.

And Hesiod says:-

First of all things was chaos made, and then

Broad-breasted earth...

And love, 'mid all the gods pre-eminent,

which implies that among existing things there must be from the first a cause which will move things and
bring them together. How these thinkers should be arranged with regard to priority of discovery let us be
allowed to decide later; but since the contraries of the various forms of good were also perceived to be
present in nature-not only order and the beautiful, but also disorder and the ugly, and bad things in greater
number than good, and ignoble things than beautiful-therefore another thinker introduced friendship and
strife, each of the two the cause of one of these two sets of qualities. For if we were to follow out the view of
Empedocles, and interpret it according to its meaning and not to its lisping expression, we should find that
friendship is the cause of good things, and strife of bad. Therefore, if we said that Empedocles in a sense both
mentions, and is the first to mention, the bad and the good as principles, we should perhaps be right, since the
cause of all goods is the good itself.

These thinkers, as we say, evidently grasped, and to this extent, two of the causes which we distinguished in
our work on nature-the matter and the source of the movement-vaguely, however, and with no clearness, but
as untrained men behave in fights; for they go round their opponents and often strike fine blows, but they do
not fight on scientific principles, and so too these thinkers do not seem to know what they say; for it is
evident that, as a rule, they make no use of their causes except to a small extent. For Anaxagoras uses reason
as a deus ex machina for the making of the world, and when he is at a loss to tell from what cause something
necessarily is, then he drags reason in, but in all other cases ascribes events to anything rather than to reason.
And Empedocles, though he uses the causes to a greater extent than this, neither does so sufficiently nor
attains consistency in their use. At least, in many cases he makes love segregate things, and strife aggregate
them. For whenever the universe is dissolved into its elements by strife, fire is aggregated into one, and so is

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each of the other elements; but whenever again under the influence of love they come together into one, the
parts must again be segregated out of each element.

Empedocles, then, in contrast with his precessors, was the first to introduce the dividing of this cause, not
positing one source of movement, but different and contrary sources. Again, he was the first to speak of four
material elements; yet he does not use four, but treats them as two only; he treats fire by itself, and its
opposite-earth, air, and water-as one kind of thing. We may learn this by study of his verses.

This philosopher then, as we say, has spoken of the principles in this way, and made them of this number.
Leucippus and his associate Democritus say that the full and the empty are the elements, calling the one being
and the other non-being-the full and solid being being, the empty non-being (whence they say being no
more is than non-being, because the solid no more is than the empty); and they make these the material
causes of things. And as those who make the underlying substance one generate all other things by its
modifications, supposing the rare and the dense to be the sources of the modifications, in the same way these
philosophers say the differences in the elements are the causes of all other qualities. These differences, they
say, are three-shape and order and position. For they say the real is differentiated only by 'rhythm and
'inter-contact' and 'turning'; and of these rhythm is shape, inter-contact is order, and turning is position; for A
differs from N in shape, AN from NA in order, M from W in position. The question of movement-whence or
how it is to belong to things-these thinkers, like the others, lazily neglected.

Regarding the two causes, then, as we say, the inquiry seems to have been pushed thus far by the early
philosophers.

Contemporaneously with these philosophers and before them, the so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first
to take up mathematics, not only advanced this study, but also having been brought up in it they thought its
principles were the principles of all things. Since of these principles numbers are by nature the first, and in
numbers they seemed to see many resemblances to the things that exist and come into being-more than in
fire and earth and water (such and such a modification of numbers being justice, another being soul and
reason, another being opportunity-and similarly almost all other things being numerically expressible); since,
again, they saw that the modifications and the ratios of the musical scales were expressible in
numbers;-since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to be modelled on numbers, and numbers
seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements
of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number. And all the properties of numbers and
scales which they could show to agree with the attributes and parts and the whole arrangement of the
heavens, they collected and fitted into their scheme; and if there was a gap anywhere, they readily made
additions so as to make their whole theory coherent. E.g. as the number 10 is thought to be perfect and to
comprise the whole nature of numbers, they say that the bodies which move through the heavens are ten, but
as the visible bodies are only nine, to meet this they invent a tenth — the 'counter-earth'. We have discussed
these matters more exactly elsewhere.

But the object of our review is that we may learn from these philosophers also what they suppose to be the
principles and how these fall under the causes we have named. Evidently, then, these thinkers also consider
that number is the principle both as matter for things and as forming both their modifications and their
permanent states, and hold that the elements of number are the even and the odd, and that of these the latter is
limited, and the former unlimited; and that the One proceeds from both of these (for it is both even and odd),
and number from the One; and that the whole heaven, as has been said, is numbers.

Other members of this same school say there are ten principles, which they arrange in two columns of
cognates-limit and unlimited, odd and even, one and plurality, right and left, male and female, resting and
moving, straight and curved, light and darkness, good and bad, square and oblong. In this way Alcmaeon of
Croton seems also to have conceived the matter, and either he got this view from them or they got it from

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him; for he expressed himself similarly to them. For he says most human affairs go in pairs, meaning not
definite contrarieties such as the Pythagoreans speak of, but any chance contrarieties, e.g. white and black,
sweet and bitter, good and bad, great and small. He threw out indefinite suggestions about the other
contrarieties, but the Pythagoreans declared both how many and which their contrarieties are.

From both these schools, then, we can learn this much, that the contraries are the principles of things; and
how many these principles are and which they are, we can learn from one of the two schools. But how these
principles can be brought together under the causes we have named has not been clearly and articulately
stated by them; they seem, however, to range the elements under the head of matter; for out of these as
immanent parts they say substance is composed and moulded.

From these facts we may sufficiently perceive the meaning of the ancients who said the elements of nature
were more than one; but there are some who spoke of the universe as if it were one entity, though they were
not all alike either in the excellence of their statement or in its conformity to the facts of nature. The
discussion of them is in no way appropriate to our present investigation of causes, for. they do not, like some
of the natural philosophers, assume being to be one and yet generate it out of the one as out of matter, but
they speak in another way; those others add change, since they generate the universe, but these thinkers say
the universe is unchangeable. Yet this much is germane to the present inquiry: Parmenides seems to fasten on
that which is one in definition, Melissus on that which is one in matter, for which reason the former says that
it is limited, the latter that it is unlimited; while Xenophanes, the first of these partisans of the One (for
Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), gave no clear statement, nor does he seem to have grasped the
nature of either of these causes, but with reference to the whole material universe he says the One is God.
Now these thinkers, as we said, must be neglected for the purposes of the present inquiry-two of them
entirely, as being a little too naive, viz. Xenophanes and Melissus; but Parmenides seems in places to speak
with more insight. For, claiming that, besides the existent, nothing non-existent exists, he thinks that of
necessity one thing exists, viz. the existent and nothing else (on this we have spoken more clearly in our work
on nature), but being forced to follow the observed facts, and supposing the existence of that which is one in
definition, but more than one according to our sensations, he now posits two causes and two principles,
calling them hot and cold, i.e. fire and earth; and of these he ranges the hot with the existent, and the other
with the non-existent.

From what has been said, then, and from the wise men who have now sat in council with us, we have got thus
much-on the one hand from the earliest philosophers, who regard the first principle as corporeal (for water
and fire and such things are bodies), and of whom some suppose that there is one corporeal principle, others
that there are more than one, but both put these under the head of matter; and on the other hand from some
who posit both this cause and besides this the source of movement, which we have got from some as single
and from others as twofold.

Down to the Italian school, then, and apart from it, philosophers have treated these subjects rather obscurely,
except that, as we said, they have in fact used two kinds of cause, and one of these-the source of
movement-some treat as one and others as two. But the Pythagoreans have said in the same way that there
are two principles, but added this much, which is peculiar to them, that they thought that finitude and infinity
were not attributes of certain other things, e.g. of fire or earth or anything else of this kind, but that infinity
itself and unity itself were the substance of the things of which they are predicated. This is why number was
the substance of all things. On this subject, then, they expressed themselves thus; and regarding the question
of essence they began to make statements and definitions, but treated the matter too simply. For they both
defined superficially and thought that the first subject of which a given definition was predicable was the
substance of the thing defined, as if one supposed that 'double' and '2' were the same, because 2 is the first
thing of which 'double' is predicable. But surely to be double and to be 2 are not the same; if they are, one
thing will be many-a consequence which they actually drew. From the earlier philosophers, then, and from
their successors we can learn thus much.

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After the systems we have named came the philosophy of Plato, which in most respects followed these
thinkers, but had peculiarities that distinguished it from the philosophy of the Italians. For, having in his
youth first become familiar with Cratylus and with the Heraclitean doctrines (that all sensible things are ever
in a state of flux and there is no knowledge about them), these views he held even in later years. Socrates,
however, was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but
seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato
accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to sensible things but to entities of another
kind-for this reason, that the common definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they were
always changing. Things of this other sort, then, he called Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were all named
after these, and in virtue of a relation to these; for the many existed by participation in the Ideas that have the
same name as they. Only the name 'participation' was new; for the Pythagoreans say that things exist by
'imitation' of numbers, and Plato says they exist by participation, changing the name. But what the
participation or the imitation of the Forms could be they left an open question.

Further, besides sensible things and Forms he says there are the objects of mathematics, which occupy an
intermediate position, differing from sensible things in being eternal and unchangeable, from Forms in that
there are many alike, while the Form itself is in each case unique.

Since the Forms were the causes of all other things, he thought their elements were the elements of all things.
As matter, the great and the small were principles; as essential reality, the One; for from the great and the
small, by participation in the One, come the Numbers.

But he agreed with the Pythagoreans in saying that the One is substance and not a predicate of something
else; and in saying that the Numbers are the causes of the reality of other things he agreed with them; but
positing a dyad and constructing the infinite out of great and small, instead of treating the infinite as one, is
peculiar to him; and so is his view that the Numbers exist apart from sensible things, while they say that the
things themselves are Numbers, and do not place the objects of mathematics between Forms and sensible
things. His divergence from the Pythagoreans in making the One and the Numbers separate from things, and
his introduction of the Forms, were due to his inquiries in the region of definitions (for the earlier thinkers
had no tincture of dialectic), and his making the other entity besides the One a dyad was due to the belief that
the numbers, except those which were prime, could be neatly produced out of the dyad as out of some plastic
material. Yet what happens is the contrary; the theory is not a reasonable one. For they make many things out
of the matter, and the form generates only once, but what we observe is that one table is made from one
matter, while the man who applies the form, though he is one, makes many tables. And the relation of the
male to the female is similar; for the latter is impregnated by one copulation, but the male impregnates many
females; yet these are analogues of those first principles.

Plato, then, declared himself thus on the points in question; it is evident from what has been said that he has
used only two causes, that of the essence and the material cause (for the Forms are the causes of the essence
of all other things, and the One is the cause of the essence of the Forms); and it is evident what the underlying
matter is, of which the Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things, and the One in the case of Forms,
viz. that this is a dyad, the great and the small. Further, he has assigned the cause of good and that of evil to
the elements, one to each of the two, as we say some of his predecessors sought to do, e.g. Empedocles and
Anaxagoras.

Our review of those who have spoken about first principles and reality and of the way in which they have
spoken, has been concise and summary; but yet we have learnt this much from them, that of those who speak
about 'principle' and 'cause' no one has mentioned any principle except those which have been distinguished
in our work on nature, but all evidently have some inkling of them, though only vaguely. For some speak of
the first principle as matter, whether they suppose one or more first principles, and whether they suppose this
to be a body or to be incorporeal; e.g. Plato spoke of the great and the small, the Italians of the infinite,

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Empedocles of fire, earth, water, and air, Anaxagoras of the infinity of things composed of similar parts.
These, then, have all had a notion of this kind of cause, and so have all who speak of air or fire or water, or
something denser than fire and rarer than air; for some have said the prime element is of this kind.

These thinkers grasped this cause only; but certain others have mentioned the source of movement, e.g. those
who make friendship and strife, or reason, or love, a principle.

The essence, i.e. the substantial reality, no one has expressed distinctly. It is hinted at chiefly by those who
believe in the Forms; for they do not suppose either that the Forms are the matter of sensible things, and the
One the matter of the Forms, or that they are the source of movement (for they say these are causes rather of
immobility and of being at rest), but they furnish the Forms as the essence of every other thing, and the One
as the essence of the Forms.

That for whose sake actions and changes and movements take place, they assert to be a cause in a way, but
not in this way, i.e. not in the way in which it is its nature to be a cause. For those who speak of reason or
friendship class these causes as goods; they do not speak, however, as if anything that exists either existed or
came into being for the sake of these, but as if movements started from these. In the same way those who say
the One or the existent is the good, say that it is the cause of substance, but not that substance either is or
comes to be for the sake of this. Therefore it turns out that in a sense they both say and do not say the good is
a cause; for they do not call it a cause qua good but only incidentally.

All these thinkers then, as they cannot pitch on another cause, seem to testify that we have determined rightly
both how many and of what sort the causes are. Besides this it is plain that when the causes are being looked
for, either all four must be sought thus or they must be sought in one of these four ways. Let us next discuss
the possible difficulties with regard to the way in which each of these thinkers has spoken, and with regard to
his situation relatively to the first principles.

Those, then, who say the universe is one and posit one kind of thing as matter, and as corporeal matter which
has spatial magnitude, evidently go astray in many ways. For they posit the elements of bodies only, not of
incorporeal things, though there are also incorporeal things. And in trying to state the causes of generation
and destruction, and in giving a physical account of all things, they do away with the cause of movement.
Further, they err in not positing the substance, i.e. the essence, as the cause of anything, and besides this in
lightly calling any of the simple bodies except earth the first principle, without inquiring how they are
produced out of one anothers-I mean fire, water, earth, and air. For some things are produced out of each
other by combination, others by separation, and this makes the greatest difference to their priority and
posteriority. For (1) in a way the property of being most elementary of all would seem to belong to the first
thing from which they are produced by combination, and this property would belong to the most fine-grained
and subtle of bodies. For this reason those who make fire the principle would be most in agreement with this
argument. But each of the other thinkers agrees that the element of corporeal things is of this sort. At least
none of those who named one element claimed that earth was the element, evidently because of the
coarseness of its grain. (Of the other three elements each has found some judge on its side; for some maintain
that fire, others that water, others that air is the element. Yet why, after all, do they not name earth also, as
most men do? For people say all things are earth Hesiod says earth was produced first of corporeal things; so
primitive and popular has the opinion been.) According to this argument, then, no one would be right who
either says the first principle is any of the elements other than fire, or supposes it to be denser than air but
rarer than water. But (2) if that which is later in generation is prior in nature, and that which is concocted and
compounded is later in generation, the contrary of what we have been saying must be true,-water must be
prior to air, and earth to water.

So much, then, for those who posit one cause such as we mentioned; but the same is true if one supposes
more of these, as Empedocles says matter of things is four bodies. For he too is confronted by consequences

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some of which are the same as have been mentioned, while others are peculiar to him. For we see these
bodies produced from one another, which implies that the same body does not always remain fire or earth (we
have spoken about this in our works on nature); and regarding the cause of movement and the question
whether we must posit one or two, he must be thought to have spoken neither correctly nor altogether
plausibly. And in general, change of quality is necessarily done away with for those who speak thus, for on
their view cold will not come from hot nor hot from cold. For if it did there would be something that accepted
the contraries themselves, and there would be some one entity that became fire and water, which Empedocles
denies.

As regards Anaxagoras, if one were to suppose that he said there were two elements, the supposition would
accord thoroughly with an argument which Anaxagoras himself did not state articulately, but which he must
have accepted if any one had led him on to it. True, to say that in the beginning all things were mixed is
absurd both on other grounds and because it follows that they must have existed before in an unmixed form,
and because nature does not allow any chance thing to be mixed with any chance thing, and also because on
this view modifications and accidents could be separated from substances (for the same things which are
mixed can be separated); yet if one were to follow him up, piecing together what he means, he would perhaps
be seen to be somewhat modern in his views. For when nothing was separated out, evidently nothing could be
truly asserted of the substance that then existed. I mean, e.g. that it was neither white nor black, nor grey nor
any other colour, but of necessity colourless; for if it had been coloured, it would have had one of these
colours. And similarly, by this same argument, it was flavourless, nor had it any similar attribute; for it could
not be either of any quality or of any size, nor could it be any definite kind of thing. For if it were, one of the
particular forms would have belonged to it, and this is impossible, since all were mixed together; for the
particular form would necessarily have been already separated out, but he all were mixed except reason, and
this alone was unmixed and pure. From this it follows, then, that he must say the principles are the One (for
this is simple and unmixed) and the Other, which is of such a nature as we suppose the indefinite to be before
it is defined and partakes of some form. Therefore, while expressing himself neither rightly nor clearly, he
means something like what the later thinkers say and what is now more clearly seen to be the case.

But these thinkers are, after all, at home only in arguments about generation and destruction and movement;
for it is practically only of this sort of substance that they seek the principles and the causes. But those who
extend their vision to all things that exist, and of existing things suppose some to be perceptible and others
not perceptible, evidently study both classes, which is all the more reason why one should devote some time
to seeing what is good in their views and what bad from the standpoint of the inquiry we have now before us.

The 'Pythagoreans' treat of principles and elements stranger than those of the physical philosophers (the
reason is that they got the principles from non-sensible things, for the objects of mathematics, except those
of astronomy, are of the class of things without movement); yet their discussions and investigations are all
about nature; for they generate the heavens, and with regard to their parts and attributes and functions they
observe the phenomena, and use up the principles and the causes in explaining these, which implies that they
agree with the others, the physical philosophers, that the real is just all that which is perceptible and contained
by the so-called 'heavens'. But the causes and the principles which they mention are, as we said, sufficient to
act as steps even up to the higher realms of reality, and are more suited to these than to theories about nature.
They do not tell us at all, however, how there can be movement if limit and unlimited and odd and even are
the only things assumed, or how without movement and change there can be generation and destruction, or
the bodies that move through the heavens can do what they do.

Further, if one either granted them that spatial magnitude consists of these elements, or this were proved, still
how would some bodies be light and others have weight? To judge from what they assume and maintain they
are speaking no more of mathematical bodies than of perceptible; hence they have said nothing whatever
about fire or earth or the other bodies of this sort, I suppose because they have nothing to say which applies
peculiarly to perceptible things.

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Further, how are we to combine the beliefs that the attributes of number, and number itself, are causes of
what exists and happens in the heavens both from the beginning and now, and that there is no other number
than this number out of which the world is composed? When in one particular region they place opinion and
opportunity, and, a little above or below, injustice and decision or mixture, and allege, as proof, that each of
these is a number, and that there happens to be already in this place a plurality of the extended bodies
composed of numbers, because these attributes of number attach to the various places,-this being so, is this
number, which we must suppose each of these abstractions to be, the same number which is exhibited in the
material universe, or is it another than this? Plato says it is different; yet even he thinks that both these bodies
and their causes are numbers, but that the intelligible numbers are causes, while the others are sensible.

Let us leave the Pythagoreans for the present; for it is enough to have touched on them as much as we have
done. But as for those who posit the Ideas as causes, firstly, in seeking to grasp the causes of the things
around us, they introduced others equal in number to these, as if a man who wanted to count things thought
he would not be able to do it while they were few, but tried to count them when he had added to their number.
For the Forms are practically equal to-or not fewer than-the things, in trying to explain which these thinkers
proceeded from them to the Forms. For to each thing there answers an entity which has the same name and
exists apart from the substances, and so also in the case of all other groups there is a one over many, whether
the many are in this world or are eternal.

Further, of the ways in which we prove that the Forms exist, none is convincing; for from some no inference
necessarily follows, and from some arise Forms even of things of which we think there are no Forms. For
according to the arguments from the existence of the sciences there will be Forms of all things of which there
are sciences and according to the 'one over many' argument there will be Forms even of negations, and
according to the argument that there is an object for thought even when the thing has perished, there will be
Forms of perishable things; for we have an image of these. Further, of the more accurate arguments, some
lead to Ideas of relations, of which we say there is no independent class, and others introduce the 'third man'.

And in general the arguments for the Forms destroy the things for whose existence we are more zealous than
for the existence of the Ideas; for it follows that not the dyad but number is first, i.e. that the relative is prior
to the absolute,-besides all the other points on which certain people by following out the opinions held about
the Ideas have come into conflict with the principles of the theory.

Further, according to the assumption on which our belief in the Ideas rests, there will be Forms not only of
substances but also of many other things (for the concept is single not only in the case of substances but also
in the other cases, and there are sciences not only of substance but also of other things, and a thousand other
such difficulties confront them). But according to the necessities of the case and the opinions held about the
Forms, if Forms can be shared in there must be Ideas of substances only. For they are not shared in
incidentally, but a thing must share in its Form as in something not predicated of a subject (by 'being shared
in incidentally' I mean that e.g. if a thing shares in 'double itself, it shares also in 'eternal', but incidentally;
for 'eternal' happens to be predicable of the 'double'). Therefore the Forms will be substance; but the same
terms indicate substance in this and in the ideal world (or what will be the meaning of saying that there is
something apart from the particulars-the one over many?). And if the Ideas and the particulars that share in
them have the same form, there will be something common to these; for why should '2' be one and the same
in the perishable 2's or in those which are many but eternal, and not the same in the '2' itself as in the
particular 2? But if they have not the same form, they must have only the name in common, and it is as if one
were to call both Callias and a wooden image a 'man', without observing any community between them.

Above all one might discuss the question what on earth the Forms contribute to sensible things, either to
those that are eternal or to those that come into being and cease to be. For they cause neither movement nor
any change in them. But again they help in no wise either towards the knowledge of the other things (for they
are not even the substance of these, else they would have been in them), or towards their being, if they are not

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in the particulars which share in them; though if they were, they might be thought to be causes, as white
causes whiteness in a white object by entering into its composition. But this argument, which first
Anaxagoras and later Eudoxus and certain others used, is very easily upset; for it is not difficult to collect
many insuperable objections to such a view.

But, further, all other things cannot come from the Forms in any of the usual senses of 'from'. And to say that
they are patterns and the other things share in them is to use empty words and poetical metaphors. For what is
it that works, looking to the Ideas? And anything can either be, or become, like another without being copied
from it, so that whether Socrates or not a man Socrates like might come to be; and evidently this might be so
even if Socrates were eternal. And there will be several patterns of the same thing, and therefore several
Forms; e.g. 'animal' and 'two-footed' and also 'man himself will be Forms of man. Again, the Forms are
patterns not only sensible things, but of Forms themselves also; i.e. the genus, as genus of various species,
will be so; therefore the same thing will be pattern and copy.

Again, it would seem impossible that the substance and that of which it is the substance should exist apart;
how, therefore, could the Ideas, being the substances of things, exist apart? In the Phaedo' the case is stated in
this way-that the Forms are causes both of being and of becoming; yet when the Forms exist, still the things
that share in them do not come into being, unless there is something to originate movement; and many other
things come into being (e.g. a house or a ring) of which we say there are no Forms. Clearly, therefore, even
the other things can both be and come into being owing to such causes as produce the things just mentioned.

Again, if the Forms are numbers, how can they be causes? Is it because existing things are other numbers,
e.g. one number is man, another is Socrates, another Callias? Why then are the one set of numbers causes of
the other set? It will not make any difference even if the former are eternal and the latter are not. But if it is
because things in this sensible world (e.g. harmony) are ratios of numbers, evidently the things between
which they are ratios are some one class of things. If, then, this — the matter — is some definite thing,
evidently the numbers themselves too will be ratios of something to something else. E.g. if Callias is a
numerical ratio between fire and earth and water and air, his Idea also will be a number of certain other
underlying things; and man himself, whether it is a number in a sense or not, will still be a numerical ratio of
certain things and not a number proper, nor will it be a of number merely because it is a numerical ratio.

Again, from many numbers one number is produced, but how can one Form come from many Forms? And if
the number comes not from the many numbers themselves but from the units in them, e.g. in 10,000, how is it
with the units? If they are specifically alike, numerous absurdities will follow, and also if they are not alike
(neither the units in one number being themselves like one another nor those in other numbers being all like
to all); for in what will they differ, as they are without quality? This is not a plausible view, nor is it
consistent with our thought on the matter.

Further, they must set up a second kind of number (with which arithmetic deals), and all the objects which are
called 'intermediate' by some thinkers; and how do these exist or from what principles do they proceed? Or
why must they be intermediate between the things in this sensible world and the things-themselves?

Further, the units in must each come from a prior but this is impossible.

Further, why is a number, when taken all together, one?

Again, besides what has been said, if the units are diverse the Platonists should have spoken like those who
say there are four, or two, elements; for each of these thinkers gives the name of element not to that which is
common, e.g. to body, but to fire and earth, whether there is something common to them, viz. body, or not.
But in fact the Platonists speak as if the One were homogeneous like fire or water; and if this is so, the
numbers will not be substances. Evidently, if there is a One itself and this is a first principle, 'one' is being

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used in more than one sense; for otherwise the theory is impossible.

When we wish to reduce substances to their principles, we state that lines come from the short and long (i.e.
from a kind of small and great), and the plane from the broad and narrow, and body from the deep and
shallow. Yet how then can either the plane contain a line, or the solid a line or a plane? For the broad and
narrow is a different class from the deep and shallow. Therefore, just as number is not present in these,
because the many and few are different from these, evidently no other of the higher classes will be present in
the lower. But again the broad is not a genus which includes the deep, for then the solid would have been a
species of plane. Further, from what principle will the presence of the points in the line be derived? Plato
even used to object to this class of things as being a geometrical fiction. He gave the name of principle of the
line-and this he often posited-to the indivisible lines. Yet these must have a limit; therefore the argument
from which the existence of the line follows proves also the existence of the point.

In general, though philosophy seeks the cause of perceptible things, we have given this up (for we say
nothing of the cause from which change takes its start), but while we fancy we are stating the substance of
perceptible things, we assert the existence of a second class of substances, while our account of the way in
which they are the substances of perceptible things is empty talk; for 'sharing', as we said before, means
nothing.

Nor have the Forms any connexion with what we see to be the cause in the case of the arts, that for whose
sake both all mind and the whole of nature are operative, -with this cause which we assert to be one of the
first principles; but mathematics has come to be identical with philosophy for modern thinkers, though they
say that it should be studied for the sake of other things. Further, one might suppose that the substance which
according to them underlies as matter is too mathematical, and is a predicate and differentia of the substance,
ie. of the matter, rather than matter itself; i.e. the great and the small are like the rare and the dense which the
physical philosophers speak of, calling these the primary differentiae of the substratum; for these are a kind
of excess and defect. And regarding movement, if the great and the small are to he movement, evidently the
Forms will be moved; but if they are not to be movement, whence did movement come? The whole study of
nature has been annihilated.

And what is thought to be easy-to show that all things are one-is not done; for what is proved by the method
of setting out instances is not that all things are one but that there is a One itself, -if we grant all the
assumptions. And not even this follows, if we do not grant that the universal is a genus; and this in some
cases it cannot be.

Nor can it be explained either how the lines and planes and solids that come after the numbers exist or can
exist, or what significance they have; for these can neither be Forms (for they are not numbers), nor the
intermediates (for those are the objects of mathematics), nor the perishable things. This is evidently a distinct
fourth class.

In general, if we search for the elements of existing things without distinguishing the many senses in which
things are said to exist, we cannot find them, especially if the search for the elements of which things are
made is conducted in this manner. For it is surely impossible to discover what 'acting' or 'being acted on', or
'the straight', is made of, but if elements can be discovered at all, it is only the elements of substances;
therefore either to seek the elements of all existing things or to think one has them is incorrect.

And how could we learn the elements of all things? Evidently we cannot start by knowing anything before.
For as he who is learning geometry, though he may know other things before, knows none of the things with
which the science deals and about which he is to learn, so is it in all other cases. Therefore if there is a
science of all things, such as some assert to exist, he who is learning this will know nothing before. Yet all
learning is by means of premisses which are (either all or some of them) known before,-whether the learning

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be by demonstration or by definitions; for the elements of the definition must be known before and be
familiar; and learning by induction proceeds similarly. But again, if the science were actually innate, it were
strange that we are unaware of our possession of the greatest of sciences.

Again, how is one to come to know what all things are made of, and how is this to be made evident? This
also affords a difficulty; for there might be a conflict of opinion, as there is about certain syllables; some say
za is made out of s and d and a, while others say it is a distinct sound and none of those that are familiar.

Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the sense in question? Yet we ought to, if
the elements of which all things consist, as complex sounds consist of the elements proper to sound, are the
same.

It is evident, then, even from what we have said before, that all men seem to seek the causes named in the
Physics, and that we cannot name any beyond these; but they seek these vaguely; and though in a sense they
have all been described before, in a sense they have not been described at all. For the earliest philosophy is,
on all subjects, like one who lisps, since it is young and in its beginnings. For even Empedocles says bone
exists by virtue of the ratio in it. Now this is the essence and the substance of the thing. But it is similarly
necessary that flesh and each of the other tissues should be the ratio of its elements, or that not one of them
should; for it is on account of this that both flesh and bone and everything else will exist, and not on account
of the matter, which he names,-fire and earth and water and air. But while he would necessarily have agreed
if another had said this, he has not said it clearly.

On these questions our views have been expressed before; but let us return to enumerate the difficulties that
might be raised on these same points; for perhaps we may get from them some help towards our later
difficulties.

Book II

THE investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact
that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but
every one says something true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or
nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to
be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect it must be easy, but the fact that we
can have a whole truth and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of it.

Perhaps, too, as difficulties are of two kinds, the cause of the present difficulty is not in the facts but in us.
For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature
most evident of all.

It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who
have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the
powers of thought. It is true that if there had been no Timotheus we should have been without much of our
lyric poetry; but if there had been no Phrynis there would have been no Timotheus. The same holds good of
those who have expressed views about the truth; for from some thinkers we have inherited certain opinions,
while the others have been responsible for the appearance of the former.

It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge
is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how things are, practical men do
not study the eternal, but what is relative and in the present). Now we do not know a truth without its cause;
and a thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the
other things as well (e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that

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that causes derivative truths to be true is most true. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always
most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves
are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of
truth.

But evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of things are neither an infinite series nor infinitely
various in kind. For neither can one thing proceed from another, as from matter, ad infinitum (e.g. flesh from
earth, earth from air, air from fire, and so on without stopping), nor can the sources of movement form an
endless series (man for instance being acted on by air, air by the sun, the sun by Strife, and so on without
limit). Similarly the final causes cannot go on ad infinitum,-walking being for the sake of health, this for the
sake of happiness, happiness for the sake of something else, and so one thing always for the sake of another.
And the case of the essence is similar. For in the case of intermediates, which have a last term and a term
prior to them, the prior must be the cause of the later terms. For if we had to say which of the three is the
cause, we should say the first; surely not the last, for the final term is the cause of none; nor even the
intermediate, for it is the cause only of one. (It makes no difference whether there is one intermediate or
more, nor whether they are infinite or finite in number.) But of series which are infinite in this way, and of
the infinite in general, all the parts down to that now present are alike intermediates; so that if there is no first
there is no cause at all.

Nor can there be an infinite process downwards, with a beginning in the upward direction, so that water
should proceed from fire, earth from water, and so always some other kind should be produced. For one thing
comes from another in two ways-not in the sense in which 'from' means 'after' (as we say 'from the Isthmian
games come the Olympian'), but either (i) as the man comes from the boy, by the boy's changing, or (ii) as air
comes from water. By 'as the man comes from the boy' we mean 'as that which has come to be from that
which is coming to be' or 'as that which is finished from that which is being achieved' (for as becoming is
between being and not being, so that which is becoming is always between that which is and that which is
not; for the learner is a man of science in the making, and this is what is meant when we say that from a
learner a man of science is being made); on the other hand, coming from another thing as water comes from
air implies the destruction of the other thing. This is why changes of the former kind are not reversible, and
the boy does not come from the man (for it is not that which comes to be something that comes to be as a
result of coming to be, but that which exists after the coming to be; for it is thus that the day, too, comes from
the morning-in the sense that it comes after the morning; which is the reason why the morning cannot come
from the day); but changes of the other kind are reversible. But in both cases it is impossible that the number
of terms should be infinite. For terms of the former kind, being intermediates, must have an end, and terms of
the latter kind change back into one another, for the destruction of either is the generation of the other.

At the same time it is impossible that the first cause, being eternal, should be destroyed; for since the process
of becoming is not infinite in the upward direction, that which is the first thing by whose destruction
something came to be must be non-eternal.

Further, the final cause is an end, and that sort of end which is not for the sake of something else, but for
whose sake everything else is; so that if there is to be a last term of this sort, the process will not be infinite;
but if there is no such term, there will be no final cause, but those who maintain the infinite series eliminate
the Good without knowing it (yet no one would try to do anything if he were not going to come to a limit);
nor would there be reason in the world; the reasonable man, at least, always acts for a purpose, and this is a
limit; for the end is a limit.

But the essence, also, cannot be reduced to another definition which is fuller in expression. For the original
definition is always more of a definition, and not the later one; and in a series in which the first term has not
the required character, the next has not it either. Further, those who speak thus destroy science; for it is not
possible to have this till one comes to the unanalysable terms. And knowledge becomes impossible; for how

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can one apprehend things that are infinite in this way? For this is not like the case of the line, to whose
divisibility there is no stop, but which we cannot think if we do not make a stop (for which reason one who is
tracing the infinitely divisible line cannot be counting the possibilities of section), but the whole line also
must be apprehended by something in us that does not move from part to part-Again, nothing infinite can
exist; and if it could, at least the notion of infinity is not infinite.

But if the kinds of causes had been infinite in number, then also knowledge would have been impossible; for
we think we know, only when we have ascertained the causes, that but that which is infinite by addition
cannot be gone through in a finite time.

The effect which lectures produce on a hearer depends on his habits; for we demand the language we are
accustomed to, and that which is different from this seems not in keeping but somewhat unintelligible and
foreign because of its unwontedness. For it is the customary that is intelligible. The force of habit is shown by
the laws, in which the legendary and childish elements prevail over our knowledge about them, owing to
habit. Thus some people do not listen to a speaker unless he speaks mathematically, others unless he gives
instances, while others expect him to cite a poet as witness. And some want to have everything done
accurately, while others are annoyed by accuracy, either because they cannot follow the connexion of thought
or because they regard it as pettifoggery. For accuracy has something of this character, so that as in trade so
in argument some people think it mean. Hence one must be already trained to know how to take each sort of
argument, since it is absurd to seek at the same time knowledge and the way of attaining knowledge; and it is
not easy to get even one of the two.

The minute accuracy of mathematics is not to be demanded in all cases, but only in the case of things which
have no matter. Hence method is not that of natural science; for presumably the whole of nature has matter.
Hence we must inquire first what nature is: for thus we shall also see what natural science treats of (and
whether it belongs to one science or to more to investigate the causes and the principles of things).

Book III

WE must, with a view to the science which we are seeking, first recount the subjects that should be first
discussed. These include both the other opinions that some have held on the first principles, and any point
besides these that happens to have been overlooked. For those who wish to get clear of difficulties it is
advantageous to discuss the difficulties well; for the subsequent free play of thought implies the solution of
the previous difficulties, and it is not possible to untie a knot of which one does not know. But the difficulty
of our thinking points to a 'knot' in the object; for in so far as our thought is in difficulties, it is in like case
with those who are bound; for in either case it is impossible to go forward. Hence one should have surveyed
all the difficulties beforehand, both for the purposes we have stated and because people who inquire without
first stating the difficulties are like those who do not know where they have to go; besides, a man does not
otherwise know even whether he has at any given time found what he is looking for or not; for the end is not
clear to such a man, while to him who has first discussed the difficulties it is clear. Further, he who has heard
all the contending arguments, as if they were the parties to a case, must be in a better position forjudging.

The first problem concerns the subject which we discussed in our prefatory remarks. It is this-(l) whether the
investigation of the causes belongs to one or to more sciences, and (2) whether such a science should survey
only the first principles of substance, or also the principles on which all men base their proofs, e.g. whether it
is possible at the same time to assert and deny one and the same thing or not, and all other such questions;
and (3) if the science in question deals with substance, whether one science deals with all substances, or more
than one, and if more, whether all are akin, or some of them must be called forms of Wisdom and the others
something else. And (4) this itself is also one of the things that must be discussed-whether sensible
substances alone should be said to exist or others also besides them, and whether these others are of one kind
or there are several classes of substances, as is supposed by those who believe both in Forms and in

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mathematical objects intermediate between these and sensible things. Into these questions, then, as we say,
we must inquire, and also (5) whether our investigation is concerned only with substances or also with the
essential attributes of substances. Further, with regard to the same and other and like and unlike and
contrariety, and with regard to prior and posterior and all other such terms about which the dialecticians try to
inquire, starting their investigation from probable premises only,-whose business is it to inquire into all
these? Further, we must discuss the essential attributes of these themselves; and we must ask not only what
each of these is, but also whether one thing always has one contrary. Again (6), are the principles and
elements of things the genera, or the parts present in each thing, into which it is divided; and (7) if they are
the genera, are they the genera that are predicated proximately of the individuals, or the highest genera, e.g. is
animal or man the first principle and the more independent of the individual instance? And (8) we must
inquire and discuss especially whether there is, besides the matter, any thing that is a cause in itself or not,
and whether this can exist apart or not, and whether it is one or more in number, and whether there is
something apart from the concrete thing (by the concrete thing I mean the matter with something already
predicated of it), or there is nothing apart, or there is something in some cases though not in others, and what
sort of cases these are. Again (9) we ask whether the principles are limited in number or in kind, both those in
the definitions and those in the substratum; and (10) whether the principles of perishable and of imperishable
things are the same or different; and whether they are all imperishable or those of perishable things are
perishable. Further (11) there is the question which is hardest of all and most perplexing, whether unity and
being, as the Pythagoreans and Plato said, are not attributes of something else but the substance of existing
things, or this is not the case, but the substratum is something else,-as Empedocles says, love; as some one
else says, fire; while another says water or air. Again (12) we ask whether the principles are universal or like
individual things, and (13) whether they exist potentially or actually, and further, whether they are potential
or actual in any other sense than in reference to movement; for these questions also would present much
difficulty. Further (14), are numbers and lines and figures and points a kind of substance or not, and if they
are substances are they separate from sensible things or present in them? With regard to all these matters not
only is it hard to get possession of the truth, but it is not easy even to think out the difficulties well.

(1) First then with regard to what we mentioned first, does it belong to one or to more sciences to investigate
all the kinds of causes? How could it belong to one science to recognize the principles if these are not
contrary?

Further, there are many things to which not all the principles pertain. For how can a principle of change or the
nature of the good exist for unchangeable things, since everything that in itself and by its own nature is good
is an end, and a cause in the sense that for its sake the other things both come to be and are, and since an end
or purpose is the end of some action, and all actions imply change? So in the case of unchangeable things this
principle could not exist, nor could there be a good itself. This is why in mathematics nothing is proved by
means of this kind of cause, nor is there any demonstration of this kind-'because it is better, or worse'; indeed
no one even mentions anything of the kind. And so for this reason some of the Sophists, e.g. Aristippus, used
to ridicule mathematics; for in the arts (he maintained), even in the industrial arts, e.g. in carpentry and
cobbling, the reason always given is 'because it is better, or worse,' but the mathematical sciences take no
account of goods and evils.

But if there are several sciences of the causes, and a different science for each different principle, which of
these sciences should be said to be that which we seek, or which of the people who possess them has the most
scientific knowledge of the object in question? The same thing may have all the kinds of causes, e.g. the
moving cause of a house is the art or the builder, the final cause is the function it fulfils, the matter is earth
and stones, and the form is the definition. To judge from our previous discussion of the question which of the
sciences should be called Wisdom, there is reason for applying the name to each of them. For inasmuch as it
is most architectonic and authoritative and the other sciences, like slavewomen, may not even contradict it,
the science of the end and of the good is of the nature of Wisdom (for the other things are for the sake of the
end). But inasmuch as it was described' as dealing with the first causes and that which is in the highest sense

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object of knowledge, the science of substance must be of the nature of Wisdom. For since men may know the
same thing in many ways, we say that he who recognizes what a thing is by its being so and so knows more
fully than he who recognizes it by its not being so and so, and in the former class itself one knows more fully
than another, and he knows most fully who knows what a thing is, not he who knows its quantity or quality or
what it can by nature do or have done to it. And further in all cases also we think that the knowledge of each
even of the things of which demonstration is possible is present only when we know what the thing is, e.g.
what squaring a rectangle is, viz. that it is the finding of a mean; and similarly in all other cases. And we
know about becomings and actions and about every change when we know the source of the movement; and
this is other than and opposed to the end. Therefore it would seem to belong to different sciences to
investigate these causes severally.

But (2), taking the starting-points of demonstration as well as the causes, it is a disputable question whether
they are the object of one science or of more (by the starting-points of demonstration I mean the common
beliefs, on which all men base their proofs); e.g. that everything must be either affirmed or denied, and that a
thing cannot at the same time be and not be, and all other such premisses:-the question is whether the same
science deals with them as with substance, or a different science, and if it is not one science, which of the two
must be identified with that which we now seek.-It is not reasonable that these topics should be the object of
one science; for why should it be peculiarly appropriate to geometry or to any other science to understand
these matters? If then it belongs to every science alike, and cannot belong to all, it is not peculiar to the
science which investigates substances, any more than to any other science, to know about these topics.-And,
at the same time, in what way can there be a science of the first principles? For we are aware even now what
each of them in fact is (at least even other sciences use them as familiar); but if there is a demonstrative
science which deals with them, there will have to be an underlying kind, and some of them must be
demonstrable attributes and others must be axioms (for it is impossible that there should be demonstration
about all of them); for the demonstration must start from certain premisses and be about a certain subject and
prove certain attributes. Therefore it follows that all attributes that are proved must belong to a single class;
for all demonstrative sciences use the axioms.

But if the science of substance and the science which deals with the axioms are different, which of them is by
nature more authoritative and prior? The axioms are most universal and are principles of all things. And if it
is not the business of the philosopher, to whom else will it belong to inquire what is true and what is untrue
about them?

(3) In general, do all substances fall under one science or under more than one? If the latter, to what sort of
substance is the present science to be assigned?-On the other hand, it is not reasonable that one science
should deal with all. For then there would be one demonstrative science dealing with all attributes. For ever
demonstrative science investigates with regard to some subject its essential attributes, starting from the
common beliefs. Therefore to investigate the essential attributes of one class of things, starting from one set
of beliefs, is the business of one science. For the subject belongs to one science, and the premisses belong to
one, whether to the same or to another; so that the attributes do so too, whether they are investigated by these
sciences or by one compounded out of them.

(5) Further, does our investigation deal with substances alone or also with their attributes? I mean for
instance, if the solid is a substance and so are lines and planes, is it the business of the same science to know
these and to know the attributes of each of these classes (the attributes about which the mathematical sciences
offer proofs), or of a different science? If of the same, the science of substance also must be a demonstrative
science, but it is thought that there is no demonstration of the essence of things. And if of another, what will
be the science that investigates the attributes of substance? This is a very difficult question.

(4) Further, must we say that sensible substances alone exist, or that there are others besides these? And are
substances of one kind or are there in fact several kinds of substances, as those say who assert the existence

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both of the Forms and of the intermediates, with which they say the mathematical sciences deal?-The sense
in which we say the Forms are both causes and self-dependent substances has been explained in our first
remarks about them; while the theory presents difficulties in many ways, the most paradoxical thing of all is
the statement that there are certain things besides those in the material universe, and that these are the same as
sensible things except that they are eternal while the latter are perishable. For they say there is a man-himself
and a horse-itself and health-itself, with no further qualification,-a procedure like that of the people who
said there are gods, but in human form. For they were positing nothing but eternal men, nor are the Platonists
making the Forms anything other than eternal sensible things.

Further, if we are to posit besides the Forms and the sensibles the intermediates between them, we shall have
many difficulties. For clearly on the same principle there will be lines besides the lines-themselves and the
sensible lines, and so with each of the other classes of things; so that since astronomy is one of these
mathematical sciences there will also be a heaven besides the sensible heaven, and a sun and a moon (and so
with the other heavenly bodies) besides the sensible. Yet how are we to believe in these things? It is not
reasonable even to suppose such a body immovable, but to suppose it moving is quite impossible.-And
similarly with the things of which optics and mathematical harmonics treat; for these also cannot exist apart
from the sensible things, for the same reasons. For if there are sensible things and sensations intermediate
between Form and individual, evidently there will also be animals intermediate between animals-themselves
and the perishable animals.-We might also raise the question, with reference to which kind of existing things
we must look for these sciences of intermediates. If geometry is to differ from mensuration only in this, that
the latter deals with things that we perceive, and the former with things that are not perceptible, evidently
there will also be a science other than medicine, intermediate between medical-science-itself and this
individual medical science, and so with each of the other sciences. Yet how is this possible? There would
have to be also healthy things besides the perceptible healthy things and the healthy-itself. — And at the same
time not even this is true, that mensuration deals with perceptible and perishable magnitudes; for then it
would have perished when they perished.

But on the other hand astronomy cannot be dealing with perceptible magnitudes nor with this heaven above
us. For neither are perceptible lines such lines as the geometer speaks of (for no perceptible thing is straight
or round in the way in which he defines 'straight' and 'round'; for a hoop touches a straight edge not at a point,
but as Protagoras used to say it did, in his refutation of the geometers), nor are the movements and spiral
orbits in the heavens like those of which astronomy treats, nor have geometrical points the same nature as the
actual stars.-Now there are some who say that these so-called intermediates between the Forms and the
perceptible things exist, not apart from the perceptible things, however, but in these; the impossible results of
this view would take too long to enumerate, but it is enough to consider even such points as the following:-It
is not reasonable that this should be so only in the case of these intermediates, but clearly the Forms also
might be in the perceptible things; for both statements are parts of the same theory. Further, it follows from
this theory that there are two solids in the same place, and that the intermediates are not immovable, since
they are in the moving perceptible things. And in general to what purpose would one suppose them to exist
indeed, but to exist in perceptible things? For the same paradoxical results will follow which we have already
mentioned; there will be a heaven besides the heaven, only it will be not apart but in the same place; which is
still more impossible.

(6) Apart from the great difficulty of stating the case truly with regard to these matters, it is very hard to say,
with regard to the first principles, whether it is the genera that should be taken as elements and principles, or
rather the primary constituents of a thing; e.g. it is the primary parts of which articulate sounds consist that
are thought to be elements and principles of articulate sound, not the common genus-articulate sound; and
we give the name of 'elements' to those geometrical propositions, the proofs of which are implied in the
proofs of the others, either of all or of most. Further, both those who say there are several elements of
corporeal things and those who say there is one, say the parts of which bodies are compounded and consist
are principles; e.g. Empedocles says fire and water and the rest are the constituent elements of things, but

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does not describe these as genera of existing things. Besides this, if we want to examine the nature of
anything else, we examine the parts of which, e.g. a bed consists and how they are put together, and then we
know its nature.

To judge from these arguments, then, the principles of things would not be the genera; but if we know each
thing by its definition, and the genera are the principles or starting-points of definitions, the genera must also
be the principles of definable things. And if to get the knowledge of the species according to which things are
named is to get the knowledge of things, the genera are at least starting-points of the species. And some also
of those who say unity or being, or the great and the small, are elements of things, seem to treat them as
genera.

But, again, it is not possible to describe the principles in both ways. For the formula of the essence is one; but
definition by genera will be different from that which states the constituent parts of a thing.

(7) Besides this, even if the genera are in the highest degree principles, should one regard the first of the
genera as principles, or those which are predicated directly of the individuals? This also admits of dispute.
For if the universals are always more of the nature of principles, evidently the uppermost of the genera are the
principles; for these are predicated of all things. There will, then, be as many principles of things as there are
primary genera, so that both being and unity will be principles and substances; for these are most of all
predicated of all existing things. But it is not possible that either unity or being should be a single genus of
things; for the differentiae of any genus must each of them both have being and be one, but it is not possible
for the genus taken apart from its species (any more than for the species of the genus) to be predicated of its
proper differentiae; so that if unity or being is a genus, no differentia will either have being or be one. But if
unity and being are not genera, neither will they be principles, if the genera are the principles. Again, the
intermediate kinds, in whose nature the differentiae are included, will on this theory be genera, down to the
indivisible species; but as it is, some are thought to be genera and others are not thought to be so. Besides
this, the differentiae are principles even more than the genera; and if these also are principles, there comes to
be practically an infinite number of principles, especially if we suppose the highest genus to be a
principle.-But again, if unity is more of the nature of a principle, and the indivisible is one, and everything
indivisible is so either in quantity or in species, and that which is so in species is the prior, and genera are
divisible into species for man is not the genus of individual men), that which is predicated directly of the
individuals will have more unity. -Further, in the case of things in which the distinction of prior and posterior
is present, that which is predicable of these things cannot be something apart from them (e.g. if two is the first
of numbers, there will not be a Number apart from the kinds of numbers; and similarly there will not be a
Figure apart from the kinds of figures; and if the genera of these things do not exist apart from the species,
the genera of other things will scarcely do so; for genera of these things are thought to exist if any do). But
among the individuals one is not prior and another posterior. Further, where one thing is better and another
worse, the better is always prior; so that of these also no genus can exist. From these considerations, then, the
species predicated of individuals seem to be principles rather than the genera. But again, it is not easy to say
in what sense these are to be taken as principles. For the principle or cause must exist alongside of the things
of which it is the principle, and must be capable of existing in separation from them; but for what reason
should we suppose any such thing to exist alongside of the individual, except that it is predicated universally
and of all? But if this is the reason, the things that are more universal must be supposed to be more of the
nature of principles; so that the highest genera would be the principles.

(8) There is a difficulty connected with these, the hardest of all and the most necessary to examine, and of
this the discussion now awaits us. If, on the one hand, there is nothing apart from individual things, and the
individuals are infinite in number, how then is it possible to get knowledge of the infinite individuals? For all
things that we come to know, we come to know in so far as they have some unity and identity, and in so far
as some attribute belongs to them universally.

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But if this is necessary, and there must be something apart from the individuals, it will be necessary that the
genera exist apart from the individuals, either the lowest or the highest genera; but we found by discussion
just now that this is impossible.

Further, if we admit in the fullest sense that something exists apart from the concrete thing, whenever
something is predicated of the matter, must there, if there is something apart, be something apart from each
set of individuals, or from some and not from others, or from none? (A) If there is nothing apart from
individuals, there will be no object of thought, but all things will be objects of sense, and there will not be
knowledge of anything, unless we say that sensation is knowledge. Further, nothing will be eternal or
unmovable; for all perceptible things perish and are in movement. But if there is nothing eternal, neither can
there be a process of coming to be; for there must be something that comes to be, i.e. from which something
comes to be, and the ultimate term in this series cannot have come to be, since the series has a limit and since
nothing can come to be out of that which is not. Further, if generation and movement exist there must also be
a limit; for no movement is infinite, but every movement has an end, and that which is incapable of
completing its coming to be cannot be in process of coming to be; and that which has completed its coming to
be must he as soon as it has come to be. Further, since the matter exists, because it is ungenerated, it is a
fortiori reasonable that the substance or essence, that which the matter is at any time coming to be, should
exist; for if neither essence nor matter is to be, nothing will be at all, and since this is impossible there must
be something besides the concrete thing, viz. the shape or form.

But again (B) if we are to suppose this, it is hard to say in which cases we are to suppose it and in which not.
For evidently it is not possible to suppose it in all cases; we could not suppose that there is a house besides
the particular houses.-Besides this, will the substance of all the individuals, e.g. of all men, be one? This is
paradoxical, for all the things whose substance is one are one. But are the substances many and different?
This also is unreasonable.-At the same time, how does the matter become each of the individuals, and how is
the concrete thing these two elements?

(9) Again, one might ask the following question also about the first principles. If they are one in kind only,
nothing will be numerically one, not even unity-itself and being-itself; and how will knowing exist, if there
is not to be something common to a whole set of individuals?

But if there is a common element which is numerically one, and each of the principles is one, and the
principles are not as in the case of perceptible things different for different things (e.g. since this particular
syllable is the same in kind whenever it occurs, the elements it are also the same in kind; only in kind, for
these also, like the syllable, are numerically different in different contexts),-if it is not like this but the
principles of things are numerically one, there will be nothing else besides the elements (for there is no
difference of meaning between 'numerically one' and 'individual'; for this is just what we mean by the
individual-the numerically one, and by the universal we mean that which is predicable of the individuals).
Therefore it will be just as if the elements of articulate sound were limited in number; all the language in the
world would be confined to the ABC, since there could not be two or more letters of the same kind.

(10) One difficulty which is as great as any has been neglected both by modern philosophers and by their
predecessors-whether the principles of perishable and those of imperishable things are the same or different.
If they are the same, how are some things perishable and others imperishable, and for what reason? The
school of Hesiod and all the theologians thought only of what was plausible to themselves, and had no regard
to us. For, asserting the first principles to be gods and born of gods, they say that the beings which did not
taste of nectar and ambrosia became mortal; and clearly they are using words which are familiar to
themselves, yet what they have said about the very application of these causes is above our comprehension.
For if the gods taste of nectar and ambrosia for their pleasure, these are in no wise the causes of their
existence; and if they taste them to maintain their existence, how can gods who need food be eternal ?-But
into the subtleties of the mythologists it is not worth our while to inquire seriously; those, however, who use

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the language of proof we must cross-examine and ask why, after all, things which consist of the same
elements are, some of them, eternal in nature, while others perish. Since these philosophers mention no cause,
and it is unreasonable that things should be as they say, evidently the principles or causes of things cannot be
the same. Even the man whom one might suppose to speak most consistently-Empedocles, even he has made
the same mistake; for he maintains that strife is a principle that causes destruction, but even strife would seem
no less to produce everything, except the One; for all things excepting God proceed from strife. At least he
says:-

From which all that was and is and will be hereafter-
Trees, and men and women, took their growth,
And beasts and birds and water-nourished fish,
And long-aged gods.

The implication is evident even apart from these words; for if strife had not been present in things, all things
would have been one, according to him; for when they have come together, 'then strife stood outermost.'
Hence it also follows on his theory that God most blessed is less wise than all others; for he does not know all
the elements; for he has in him no strife, and knowledge is of the like by the like. 'For by earth,' he says,

we see earth, by water water,
By ether godlike ether, by fire wasting fire,
Love by love, and strife by gloomy strife.

But-and this is the point we started from this at least is evident, that on his theory it follows that strife is as
much the cause of existence as of destruction. And similarly love is not specially the cause of existence; for
in collecting things into the One it destroys all other things. And at the same time Empedocles mentions no
cause of the change itself, except that things are so by nature.

But when strife at last waxed great in the limbs of the

Sphere,
And sprang to assert its rights as the time was fulfilled

Which is fixed for them in turn by a mighty oath.

This implies that change was necessary; but he shows no cause of the necessity. But yet so far at least he
alone speaks consistently; for he does not make some things perishable and others imperishable, but makes
all perishable except the elements. The difficulty we are speaking of now is, why some things are perishable
and others are not, if they consist of the same principles.

Let this suffice as proof of the fact that the principles cannot be the same. But if there are different principles,
one difficulty is whether these also will be imperishable or perishable. For if they are perishable, evidently
these also must consist of certain elements (for all things that perish, perish by being resolved into the
elements of which they consist); so that it follows that prior to the principles there are other principles. But
this is impossible, whether the process has a limit or proceeds to infinity. Further, how will perishable things
exist, if their principles are to be annulled? But if the principles are imperishable, why will things composed
of some imperishable principles be perishable, while those composed of the others are imperishable? This is
not probable, but is either impossible or needs much proof. Further, no one has even tried to maintain
different principles; they maintain the same principles for all things. But they swallow the difficulty we stated
first as if they took it to be something trifling.

(11) The inquiry that is both the hardest of all and the most necessary for knowledge of the truth is whether
being and unity are the substances of things, and whether each of them, without being anything else, is being
or unity respectively, or we must inquire what being and unity are, with the implication that they have some
other underlying nature. For some people think they are of the former, others think they are of the latter

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character. Plato and the Pythagoreans thought being and unity were nothing else, but this was their nature,
their essence being just unity and being. But the natural philosophers take a different line; e.g.
Empedocles-as though reducing to something more intelligible-says what unity is; for he would seem to say
it is love: at least, this is for all things the cause of their being one. Others say this unity and being, of which
things consist and have been made, is fire, and others say it is air. A similar view is expressed by those who
make the elements more than one; for these also must say that unity and being are precisely all the things
which they say are principles.

(A) If we do not suppose unity and being to be substances, it follows that none of the other universals is a
substance; for these are most universal of all, and if there is no unity itself or being-itself, there will scarcely
be in any other case anything apart from what are called the individuals. Further, if unity is not a substance,
evidently number also will not exist as an entity separate from the individual things; for number is units, and
the unit is precisely a certain kind of one.

But (B) if there is a unity-itself and a being itself, unity and being must be their substance; for it is not
something else that is predicated universally of the things that are and are one, but just unity and being. But if
there is to be a being-itself and a unity-itself, there is much difficulty in seeing how there will be anything
else besides these,-I mean, how things will be more than one in number. For what is different from being
does not exist, so that it necessarily follows, according to the argument of Parmenides, that all things that are
are one and this is being.

There are objections to both views. For whether unity is not a substance or there is a unity-itself, number
cannot be a substance. We have already said why this result follows if unity is not a substance; and if it is, the
same difficulty arises as arose with regard to being. For whence is there to be another one besides
unity-itself? It must be not-one; but all things are either one or many, and of the many each is one.

Further, if unity-itself is indivisible, according to Zeno's postulate it will be nothing. For that which neither
when added makes a thing greater nor when subtracted makes it less, he asserts to have no being, evidently
assuming that whatever has being is a spatial magnitude. And if it is a magnitude, it is corporeal; for the
corporeal has being in every dimension, while the other objects of mathematics, e.g. a plane or a line, added
in one way will increase what they are added to, but in another way will not do so, and a point or a unit does
so in no way. But, since his theory is of a low order, and an indivisible thing can exist in such a way as to
have a defence even against him (for the indivisible when added will make the number, though not the size,
greater),-yet how can a magnitude proceed from one such indivisible or from many? It is like saying that the
line is made out of points.

But even if ore supposes the case to be such that, as some say, number proceeds from unity-itself and
something else which is not one, none the less we must inquire why and how the product will be sometimes a
number and sometimes a magnitude, if the not-one was inequality and was the same principle in either case.
For it is not evident how magnitudes could proceed either from the one and this principle, or from some
number and this principle.

(14) A question connected with these is whether numbers and bodies and planes and points are substances of
a kind, or not. If they are not, it baffles us to say what being is and what the substances of things are. For
modifications and movements and relations and dispositions and ratios do not seem to indicate the substance
of anything; for all are predicated of a subject, and none is a 'this'. And as to the things which might seem
most of all to indicate substance, water and earth and fire and air, of which composite bodies consist, heat and
cold and the like are modifications of these, not substances, and the body which is thus modified alone
persists as something real and as a substance. But, on the other hand, the body is surely less of a substance
than the surface, and the surface than the line, and the line than the unit and the point. For the body is
bounded by these; and they are thought to be capable of existing without body, but body incapable of existing

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without these. This is why, while most of the philosophers and the earlier among them thought that substance
and being were identical with body, and that all other things were modifications of this, so that the first
principles of the bodies were the first principles of being, the more recent and those who were held to be
wiser thought numbers were the first principles. As we said, then, if these are not substance, there is no
substance and no being at all; for the accidents of these it cannot be right to call beings.

But if this is admitted, that lines and points are substance more than bodies, but we do not see to what sort of
bodies these could belong (for they cannot be in perceptible bodies), there can be no substance.-Further,
these are all evidently divisions of body,-one in breadth, another in depth, another in length. Besides this, no
sort of shape is present in the solid more than any other; so that if the Hermes is not in the stone, neither is the
half of the cube in the cube as something determinate; therefore the surface is not in it either; for if any sort of
surface were in it, the surface which marks off the half of the cube would be in it too. And the same account
applies to the line and to the point and the unit. Therefore, if on the one hand body is in the highest degree
substance, and on the other hand these things are so more than body, but these are not even instances of
substance, it baffles us to say what being is and what the substance of things is.-For besides what has been
said, the questions of generation and instruction confront us with further paradoxes. For if substance, not
having existed before, now exists, or having existed before, afterwards does not exist, this change is thought
to be accompanied by a process of becoming or perishing; but points and lines and surfaces cannot be in
process either of becoming or of perishing, when they at one time exist and at another do not. For when
bodies come into contact or are divided, their boundaries simultaneously become one in the one case when
they touch, and two in the other-when they are divided; so that when they have been put together one
boundary does not exist but has perished, and when they have been divided the boundaries exist which before
did not exist (for it cannot be said that the point, which is indivisible, was divided into two). And if the
boundaries come into being and cease to be, from what do they come into being? A similar account may also
be given of the 'now' in time; for this also cannot be in process of coming into being or of ceasing to be, but
yet seems to be always different, which shows that it is not a substance. And evidently the same is true of
points and lines and planes; for the same argument applies, since they are all alike either limits or divisions.

In general one might raise the question why after all, besides perceptible things and the intermediates, we
have to look for another class of things, i.e. the Forms which we posit. If it is for this reason, because the
objects of mathematics, while they differ from the things in this world in some other respect, differ not at all
in that there are many of the same kind, so that their first principles cannot be limited in number (just as the
elements of all the language in this sensible world are not limited in number, but in kind, unless one takes the
elements of this individual syllable or of this individual articulate sound-whose elements will be limited even
in number; so is it also in the case of the intermediates; for there also the members of the same kind are
infinite in number), so that if there are not-besides perceptible and mathematical objects-others such as some
maintain the Forms to be, there will be no substance which is one in number, but only in kind, nor will the
first principles of things be determinate in number, but only in kind:-if then this must be so, the Forms also
must therefore be held to exist. Even if those who support this view do not express it articulately, still this is
what they mean, and they must be maintaining the Forms just because each of the Forms is a substance and
none is by accident.

But if we are to suppose both that the Forms exist and that the principles are one in number, not in kind, we
have mentioned the impossible results that necessarily follow.

(13) Closely connected with this is the question whether the elements exist potentially or in some other
manner. If in some other way, there will be something else prior to the first principles; for the potency is prior
to the actual cause, and it is not necessary for everything potential to be actual.-But if the elements exist
potentially, it is possible that everything that is should not be. For even that which is not yet is capable of
being; for that which is not comes to be, but nothing that is incapable of being comes to be.

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(12) We must not only raise these questions about the first principles, but also ask whether they are universal
or what we call individuals. If they are universal, they will not be substances; for everything that is common
indicates not a 'this' but a 'such', but substance is a 'this'. And if we are to be allowed to lay it down that a
common predicate is a 'this' and a single thing, Socrates will be several animals-himself and 'man' and
'animal', if each of these indicates a 'this' and a single thing.

If, then, the principles are universals, these universal. Therefore if there is to be results follow; if they are not
universals but of knowledge of the principles there must be the nature of individuals, they will not be other
principles prior to them, namely those knowable; for the knowledge of anything is that are universally
predicated of them.

Book IV

THERE is a science which investigates being as being and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its
own nature. Now this is not the same as any of the so-called special sciences; for none of these others treats
universally of being as being. They cut off a part of being and investigate the attribute of this part; this is
what the mathematical sciences for instance do. Now since we are seeking the first principles and the highest
causes, clearly there must be some thing to which these belong in virtue of its own nature. If then those who
sought the elements of existing things were seeking these same principles, it is necessary that the elements
must be elements of being not by accident but just because it is being. Therefore it is of being as being that
we also must grasp the first causes.

There are many senses in which a thing may be said to 'be', but all that 'is' is related to one central point, one
definite kind of thing, and is not said to 'be' by a mere ambiguity. Everything which is healthy is related to
health, one thing in the sense that it preserves health, another in the sense that it produces it, another in the
sense that it is a symptom of health, another because it is capable of it. And that which is medical is relative
to the medical art, one thing being called medical because it possesses it, another because it is naturally
adapted to it, another because it is a function of the medical art. And we shall find other words used similarly
to these. So, too, there are many senses in which a thing is said to be, but all refer to one starting-point; some
things are said to be because they are substances, others because they are affections of substance, others
because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or
productive or generative of substance, or of things which are relative to substance, or negations of one of
these thing of substance itself. It is for this reason that we say even of non-being that it is nonbeing. As, then,
there is one science which deals with all healthy things, the same applies in the other cases also. For not only
in the case of things which have one common notion does the investigation belong to one science, but also in
the case of things which are related to one common nature; for even these in a sense have one common
notion. It is clear then that it is the work of one science also to study the things that are, qua being.-But
everywhere science deals chiefly with that which is primary, and on which the other things depend, and in
virtue of which they get their names. If, then, this is substance, it will be of substances that the philosopher
must grasp the principles and the causes.

Now for each one class of things, as there is one perception, so there is one science, as for instance grammar,
being one science, investigates all articulate sounds. Hence to investigate all the species of being qua being is
the work of a science which is generically one, and to investigate the several species is the work of the
specific parts of the science.

If, now, being and unity are the same and are one thing in the sense that they are implied in one another as
principle and cause are, not in the sense that they are explained by the same definition (though it makes no
difference even if we suppose them to be like that-in fact this would even strengthen our case); for 'one man'
and 'man' are the same thing, and so are 'existent man' and 'man', and the doubling of the words in 'one man
and one existent man' does not express anything different (it is clear that the two things are not separated

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either in coming to be or in ceasing to be); and similarly 'one existent man' adds nothing to 'existent man', and
that it is obvious that the addition in these cases means the same thing, and unity is nothing apart from being;
and if, further, the substance of each thing is one in no merely accidental way, and similarly is from its very
nature something that is:— all this being so, there must be exactly as many species of being as of unity. And to
investigate the essence of these is the work of a science which is generically one-I mean, for instance, the
discussion of the same and the similar and the other concepts of this sort; and nearly all contraries may be
referred to this origin; let us take them as having been investigated in the 'Selection of Contraries'.

And there are as many parts of philosophy as there are kinds of substance, so that there must necessarily be
among them a first philosophy and one which follows this. For being falls immediately into genera; for which
reason the sciences too will correspond to these genera. For the philosopher is like the mathematician, as that
word is used; for mathematics also has parts, and there is a first and a second science and other successive
ones within the sphere of mathematics.

Now since it is the work of one science to investigate opposites, and plurality is opposed to unity-and it
belongs to one science to investigate the negation and the privation because in both cases we are really
investigating the one thing of which the negation or the privation is a negation or privation (for we either say
simply that that thing is not present, or that it is not present in some particular class; in the latter case
difference is present over and above what is implied in negation; for negation means just the absence of the
thing in question, while in privation there is also employed an underlying nature of which the privation is
asserted):-in view of all these facts, the contraries of the concepts we named above, the other and the
dissimilar and the unequal, and everything else which is derived either from these or from plurality and unity,
must fall within the province of the science above named. And contrariety is one of these concepts; for
contrariety is a kind of difference, and difference is a kind of otherness. Therefore, since there are many
senses in which a thing is said to be one, these terms also will have many senses, but yet it belongs to one
science to know them all; for a term belongs to different sciences not if it has different senses, but if it has not
one meaning and its definitions cannot be referred to one central meaning. And since all things are referred to
that which is primary, as for instance all things which are called one are referred to the primary one, we must
say that this holds good also of the same and the other and of contraries in general; so that after distinguishing
the various senses of each, we must then explain by reference to what is primary in the case of each of the
predicates in question, saying how they are related to it; for some will be called what they are called because
they possess it, others because they produce it, and others in other such ways.

It is evident, then, that it belongs to one science to be able to give an account of these concepts as well as of
substance (this was one of the questions in our book of problems), and that it is the function of the
philosopher to be able to investigate all things. For if it is not the function of the philosopher, who is it who
will inquire whether Socrates and Socrates seated are the same thing, or whether one thing has one contrary,
or what contrariety is, or how many meanings it has? And similarly with all other such questions. Since, then,
these are essential modifications of unity qua unity and of being qua being, not qua numbers or lines or fire, it
is clear that it belongs to this science to investigate both the essence of these concepts and their properties.
And those who study these properties err not by leaving the sphere of philosophy, but by forgetting that
substance, of which they have no correct idea, is prior to these other things. For number qua number has
peculiar attributes, such as oddness and evenness, commensurability and equality, excess and defect, and
these belong to numbers either in themselves or in relation to one another. And similarly the solid and the
motionless and that which is in motion and the weightless and that which has weight have other peculiar
properties. So too there are certain properties peculiar to being as such, and it is about these that the
philosopher has to investigate the truth.-An indication of this may be mentioned: dialecticians and sophists
assume the same guise as the philosopher, for sophistic is Wisdom which exists only in semblance, and
dialecticians embrace all things in their dialectic, and being is common to all things; but evidently their
dialectic embraces these subjects because these are proper to philosophy. -For sophistic and dialectic turn on
the same class of things as philosophy, but this differs from dialectic in the nature of the faculty required and

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from sophistic in respect of the purpose of the philosophic life. Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy
claims to know, and sophistic is what appears to be philosophy but is not.

Again, in the list of contraries one of the two columns is privative, and all contraries are reducible to being
and non-being, and to unity and plurality, as for instance rest belongs to unity and movement to plurality.
And nearly all thinkers agree that being and substance are composed of contraries; at least all name contraries
as their first principles-some name odd and even, some hot and cold, some limit and the unlimited, some
love and strife. And all the others as well are evidently reducible to unity and plurality (this reduction we
must take for granted), and the principles stated by other thinkers fall entirely under these as their genera. It is
obvious then from these considerations too that it belongs to one science to examine being qua being. For all
things are either contraries or composed of contraries, and unity and plurality are the starting-points of all
contraries. And these belong to one science, whether they have or have not one single meaning. Probably the
truth is that they have not; yet even if 'one' has several meanings, the other meanings will be related to the
primary meaning (and similarly in the case of the contraries), even if being or unity is not a universal and the
same in every instance or is not separable from the particular instances (as in fact it probably is not; the unity
is in some cases that of common reference, in some cases that of serial succession). And for this reason it
does not belong to the geometer to inquire what is contrariety or completeness or unity or being or the same
or the other, but only to presuppose these concepts and reason from this starting-point. — Obviously then it is
the work of one science to examine being qua being, and the attributes which belong to it qua being, and the
same science will examine not only substances but also their attributes, both those above named and the
concepts 'prior' and 'posterior', 'genus' and 'species', 'whole' and 'part', and the others of this sort.

We must state whether it belongs to one or to different sciences to inquire into the truths which are in
mathematics called axioms, and into substance. Evidently, the inquiry into these also belongs to one science,
and that the science of the philosopher; for these truths hold good for everything that is, and not for some
special genus apart from others. And all men use them, because they are true of being qua being and each
genus has being. But men use them just so far as to satisfy their purposes; that is, as far as the genus to which
their demonstrations refer extends. Therefore since these truths clearly hold good for all things qua being (for
this is what is common to them), to him who studies being qua being belongs the inquiry into these as well.
And for this reason no one who is conducting a special inquiry tries to say anything about their truth or
falsity,-neither the geometer nor the arithmetician. Some natural philosophers indeed have done so, and their
procedure was intelligible enough; for they thought that they alone were inquiring about the whole of nature
and about being. But since there is one kind of thinker who is above even the natural philosopher (for nature
is only one particular genus of being), the discussion of these truths also will belong to him whose inquiry is
universal and deals with primary substance. Physics also is a kind of Wisdom, but it is not the first kind.-And
the attempts of some of those who discuss the terms on which truth should be accepted, are due to a want of
training in logic; for they should know these things already when they come to a special study, and not be
inquiring into them while they are listening to lectures on it.

Evidently then it belongs to the philosopher, i.e. to him who is studying the nature of all substance, to inquire
also into the principles of syllogism. But he who knows best about each genus must be able to state the most
certain principles of his subject, so that he whose subject is existing things qua existing must be able to state
the most certain principles of all things. This is the philosopher, and the most certain principle of all is that
regarding which it is impossible to be mistaken; for such a principle must be both the best known (for all men
may be mistaken about things which they do not know), and non-hypothetical. For a principle which every
one must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis; and that which every one must know
who knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study. Evidently then such a principle
is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at
the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect; we must presuppose, to
guard against dialectical objections, any further qualifications which might be added. This, then, is the most
certain of all principles, since it answers to the definition given above. For it is impossible for any one to

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believe the same thing to be and not to be, as some think Heraclitus says. For what a man says, he does not
necessarily believe; and if it is impossible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same
subject (the usual qualifications must be presupposed in this premiss too), and if an opinion which contradicts
another is contrary to it, obviously it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same
thing to be and not to be; for if a man were mistaken on this point he would have contrary opinions at the
same time. It is for this reason that all who are carrying out a demonstration reduce it to this as an ultimate
belief; for this is naturally the starting-point even for all the other axioms.

There are some who, as we said, both themselves assert that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to
be, and say that people can judge this to be the case. And among others many writers about nature use this
language. But we have now posited that it is impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be, and
by this means have shown that this is the most indisputable of all principles.-Some indeed demand that even
this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one
should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that
there should be demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there
would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these
persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one.

We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is impossible, if our opponent will only say
something; and if he says nothing, it is absurd to seek to give an account of our views to one who cannot give
an account of anything, in so far as he cannot do so. For such a man, as such, is from the start no better than a
vegetable. Now negative demonstration I distinguish from demonstration proper, because in a demonstration
one might be thought to be begging the question, but if another person is responsible for the assumption we
shall have negative proof, not demonstration. The starting-point for all such arguments is not the demand that
our opponent shall say that something either is or is not (for this one might perhaps take to be a begging of
the question), but that he shall say something which is significant both for himself and for another; for this is
necessary, if he really is to say anything. For, if he means nothing, such a man will not be capable of
reasoning, either with himself or with another. But if any one grants this, demonstration will be possible; for
we shall already have something definite. The person responsible for the proof, however, is not he who
demonstrates but he who listens; for while disowning reason he listens to reason. And again he who admits
this has admitted that something is true apart from demonstration (so that not everything will be 'so and not
so').

First then this at least is obviously true, that the word 'be' or 'not be' has a definite meaning, so that not
everything will be 'so and not so'. Again, if 'man' has one meaning, let this be 'two-footed animal'; by having
one meaning I understand this:— if 'man' means 'X', then if A is a man 'X' will be what 'being a man' means for
him. (It makes no difference even if one were to say a word has several meanings, if only they are limited in
number; for to each definition there might be assigned a different word. For instance, we might say that 'man'
has not one meaning but several, one of which would have one definition, viz. 'two-footed animal', while
there might be also several other definitions if only they were limited in number; for a peculiar name might
be assigned to each of the definitions. If, however, they were not limited but one were to say that the word
has an infinite number of meanings, obviously reasoning would be impossible; for not to have one meaning is
to have no meaning, and if words have no meaning our reasoning with one another, and indeed with
ourselves, has been annihilated; for it is impossible to think of anything if we do not think of one thing; but if
this is possible, one name might be assigned to this thing.)

Let it be assumed then, as was said at the beginning, that the name has a meaning and has one meaning; it is
impossible, then, that 'being a man' should mean precisely 'not being a man', if 'man' not only signifies
something about one subject but also has one significance (for we do not identify 'having one significance'
with 'signifying something about one subject', since on that assumption even 'musical' and 'white' and 'man'
would have had one significance, so that all things would have been one; for they would all have had the

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same significance).

And it will not be possible to be and not to be the same thing, except in virtue of an ambiguity, just as if one
whom we call 'man', others were to call 'not-man'; but the point in question is not this, whether the same
thing can at the same time be and not be a man in name, but whether it can in fact. Now if 'man' and
'not-man' mean nothing different, obviously 'not being a man' will mean nothing different from 'being a man';
so that 'being a man' will be 'not being a man'; for they will be one. For being one means this-being related as
'raiment' and 'dress' are, if their definition is one. And if 'being a man' and 'being a not-man' are to be one,
they must mean one thing. But it was shown earlier' that they mean different things.-Therefore, if it is true to
say of anything that it is a man, it must be a two-footed animal (for this was what 'man' meant); and if this is
necessary, it is impossible that the same thing should not at that time be a two-footed animal; for this is what
'being necessary' means-that it is impossible for the thing not to be. It is, then, impossible that it should be at
the same time true to say the same thing is a man and is not a man.

The same account holds good with regard to 'not being a man', for 'being a man' and 'being a not-man' mean
different things, since even 'being white' and 'being a man' are different; for the former terms are much more
different so that they must a fortiori mean different things. And if any one says that 'white' means one and the
same thing as 'man', again we shall say the same as what was said before, that it would follow that all things
are one, and not only opposites. But if this is impossible, then what we have maintained will follow, if our
opponent will only answer our question.

And if, when one asks the question simply, he adds the contradictories, he is not answering the question. For
there is nothing to prevent the same thing from being both a man and white and countless other things: but
still, if one asks whether it is or is not true to say that this is a man, our opponent must give an answer which
means one thing, and not add that 'it is also white and large'. For, besides other reasons, it is impossible to
enumerate its accidental attributes, which are infinite in number; let him, then, enumerate either all or none.
Similarly, therefore, even if the same thing is a thousand times a man and a not-man, he must not, in
answering the question whether this is a man, add that it is also at the same time a not-man, unless he is
bound to add also all the other accidents, all that the subject is or is not; and if he does this, he is not
observing the rules of argument.

And in general those who say this do away with substance and essence. For they must say that all attributes
are accidents, and that there is no such thing as 'being essentially a man' or 'an animal'. For if there is to be
any such thing as 'being essentially a man' this will not be 'being a not-man' or 'not being a man' (yet these
are negations of it); for there was one thing which it meant, and this was the substance of something. And
denoting the substance of a thing means that the essence of the thing is nothing else. But if its being
essentially a man is to be the same as either being essentially a not-man or essentially not being a man, then
its essence will be something else. Therefore our opponents must say that there cannot be such a definition of
anything, but that all attributes are accidental; for this is the distinction between substance and
accident-'white' is accidental to man, because though he is white, whiteness is not his essence. But if all
statements are accidental, there will be nothing primary about which they are made, if the accidental always
implies predication about a subject. The predication, then, must go on ad infinitum. But this is impossible; for
not even more than two terms can be combined in accidental predication. For (1) an accident is not an
accident of an accident, unless it be because both are accidents of the same subject. I mean, for instance, that
the white is musical and the latter is white, only because both are accidental to man. But (2) Socrates is
musical, not in this sense, that both terms are accidental to something else. Since then some predicates are
accidental in this and some in that sense, (a) those which are accidental in the latter sense, in which white is
accidental to Socrates, cannot form an infinite series in the upward direction; e.g. Socrates the white has not
yet another accident; for no unity can be got out of such a sum. Nor again (b) will 'white' have another term
accidental to it, e.g. 'musical'. For this is no more accidental to that than that is to this; and at the same time
we have drawn the distinction, that while some predicates are accidental in this sense, others are so in the

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sense in which 'musical' is accidental to Socrates; and the accident is an accident of an accident not in cases
of the latter kind, but only in cases of the other kind, so that not all terms will be accidental. There must, then,
even so be something which denotes substance. And if this is so, it has been shown that contradictories
cannot be predicated at the same time.

Again, if all contradictory statements are true of the same subject at the same time, evidently all things will be
one. For the same thing will be a trireme, a wall, and a man, if of everything it is possible either to affirm or
to deny anything (and this premiss must be accepted by those who share the views of Protagoras). For if any
one thinks that the man is not a trireme, evidently he is not a trireme; so that he also is a trireme, if, as they
say, contradictory statements are both true. And we thus get the doctrine of Anaxagoras, that all things are
mixed together; so that nothing really exists. They seem, then, to be speaking of the indeterminate, and, while
fancying themselves to be speaking of being, they are speaking about non-being; for it is that which exists
potentially and not in complete reality that is indeterminate. But they must predicate of every subject the
affirmation or the negation of every attribute. For it is absurd if of each subject its own negation is to be
predicable, while the negation of something else which cannot be predicated of it is not to be predicable of it;
for instance, if it is true to say of a man that he is not a man, evidently it is also true to say that he is either a
trireme or not a trireme. If, then, the affirmative can be predicated, the negative must be predicable too; and if
the affirmative is not predicable, the negative, at least, will be more predicable than the negative of the
subject itself. If, then, even the latter negative is predicable, the negative of 'trireme' will be also predicable;
and, if this is predicable, the affirmative will be so too.

Those, then, who maintain this view are driven to this conclusion, and to the further conclusion that it is not
necessary either to assert or to deny. For if it is true that a thing is a man and a not-man, evidently also it will
be neither a man nor a not-man. For to the two assertions there answer two negations, and if the former is
treated as a single proposition compounded out of two, the latter also is a single proposition opposite to the
former.

Again, either the theory is true in all cases, and a thing is both white and not-white, and existent and
non-existent, and all other assertions and negations are similarly compatible or the theory is true of some
statements and not of others. And if not of all, the exceptions will be contradictories of which admittedly only
one is true; but if of all, again either the negation will be true wherever the assertion is, and the assertion true
wherever the negation is, or the negation will be true where the assertion is, but the assertion not always true
where the negation is. And (a) in the latter case there will be something which fixedly is not, and this will be
an indisputable belief; and if non-being is something indisputable and knowable, the opposite assertion will
be more knowable. But (b) if it is equally possible also to assert all that it is possible to deny, one must either
be saying what is true when one separates the predicates (and says, for instance, that a thing is white, and
again that it is not-white), or not. And if (i) it is not true to apply the predicates separately, our opponent is
not saying what he professes to say, and also nothing at all exists; but how could non-existent things speak or
walk, as he does? Also all things would on this view be one, as has been already said, and man and God and
trireme and their contradictories will be the same. For if contradictories can be predicated alike of each
subject, one thing will in no wise differ from another; for if it differ, this difference will be something true
and peculiar to it. And (ii) if one may with truth apply the predicates separately, the above-mentioned result
follows none the less, and, further, it follows that all would then be right and all would be in error, and our
opponent himself confesses himself to be in error.-And at the same time our discussion with him is evidently
about nothing at all; for he says nothing. For he says neither 'yes' nor 'no', but 'yes and no'; and again he
denies both of these and says 'neither yes nor no'; for otherwise there would already be something definite.

Again if when the assertion is true, the negation is false, and when this is true, the affirmation is false, it will
not be possible to assert and deny the same thing truly at the same time. But perhaps they might say this was
the very question at issue.

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Again, is he in error who judges either that the thing is so or that it is not so, and is he right who judges both?
If he is right, what can they mean by saying that the nature of existing things is of this kind? And if he is not
right, but more right than he who judges in the other way, being will already be of a definite nature, and this
will be true, and not at the same time also not true. But if all are alike both wrong and right, one who is in this
condition will not be able either to speak or to say anything intelligible; for he says at the same time both 'yes'
and 'no.' And if he makes no judgement but 'thinks' and 'does not think, indifferently, what difference will
there be between him and a vegetable?-Thus, then, it is in the highest degree evident that neither any one of
those who maintain this view nor any one else is really in this position. For why does a man walk to Megara
and not stay at home, when he thinks he ought to be walking there? Why does he not walk early some
morning into a well or over a precipice, if one happens to be in his way? Why do we observe him guarding
against this, evidently because he does not think that falling in is alike good and not good? Evidently, then, he
judges one thing to be better and another worse. And if this is so, he must also judge one thing to be a man
and another to be not-a-man, one thing to be sweet and another to be not-sweet. For he does not aim at and
judge all things alike, when, thinking it desirable to drink water or to see a man, he proceeds to aim at these
things; yet he ought, if the same thing were alike a man and not-a-man. But, as was said, there is no one who
does not obviously avoid some things and not others. Therefore, as it seems, all men make unqualified
judgements, if not about all things, still about what is better and worse. And if this is not knowledge but
opinion, they should be all the more anxious about the truth, as a sick man should be more anxious about his
health than one who is healthy; for he who has opinions is, in comparison with the man who knows, not in a
healthy state as far as the truth is concerned.

Again, however much all things may be 'so and not so', still there is a more and a less in the nature of things;
for we should not say that two and three are equally even, nor is he who thinks four things are five equally
wrong with him who thinks they are a thousand. If then they are not equally wrong, obviously one is less
wrong and therefore more right. If then that which has more of any quality is nearer the norm, there must be
some truth to which the more true is nearer. And even if there is not, still there is already something better
founded and liker the truth, and we shall have got rid of the unqualified doctrine which would prevent us
from determining anything in our thought.

From the same opinion proceeds the doctrine of Protagoras, and both doctrines must be alike true or alike
untrue. For on the one hand, if all opinions and appearances are true, all statements must be at the same time
true and false. For many men hold beliefs in which they conflict with one another, and think those mistaken
who have not the same opinions as themselves; so that the same thing must both be and not be. And on the
other hand, if this is so, all opinions must be true; for those who are mistaken and those who are right are
opposed to one another in their opinions; if, then, reality is such as the view in question supposes, all will be
right in their beliefs.

Evidently, then, both doctrines proceed from the same way of thinking. But the same method of discussion
must not be used with all opponents; for some need persuasion, and others compulsion. Those who have been
driven to this position by difficulties in their thinking can easily be cured of their ignorance; for it is not their
expressed argument but their thought that one has to meet. But those who argue for the sake of argument can
be cured only by refuting the argument as expressed in speech and in words.

Those who really feel the difficulties have been led to this opinion by observation of the sensible world. (1)
They think that contradictories or contraries are true at the same time, because they see contraries coming
into existence out of the same thing. If, then, that which is not cannot come to be, the thing must have existed
before as both contraries alike, as Anaxagoras says all is mixed in all, and Democritus too; for he says the
void and the full exist alike in every part, and yet one of these is being, and the other non-being. To those,
then, whose belief rests on these grounds, we shall say that in a sense they speak rightly and in a sense they
err. For 'that which is' has two meanings, so that in some sense a thing can come to be out of that which is
not, while in some sense it cannot, and the same thing can at the same time be in being and not in being-but

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not in the same respect. For the same thing can be potentially at the same time two contraries, but it cannot
actually. And again we shall ask them to believe that among existing things there is also another kind of
substance to which neither movement nor destruction nor generation at all belongs.

And (2) similarly some have inferred from observation of the sensible world the truth of appearances. For
they think that the truth should not be determined by the large or small number of those who hold a belief,
and that the same thing is thought sweet by some when they taste it, and bitter by others, so that if all were ill
or all were mad, and only two or three were well or sane, these would be thought ill and mad, and not the
others.

And again, they say that many of the other animals receive impressions contrary to ours; and that even to the
senses of each individual, things do not always seem the same. Which, then, of these impressions are true and
which are false is not obvious; for the one set is no more true than the other, but both are alike. And this is
why Democritus, at any rate, says that either there is no truth or to us at least it is not evident.

And in general it is because these thinkers suppose knowledge to be sensation, and this to be a physical
alteration, that they say that what appears to our senses must be true; for it is for these reasons that both
Empedocles and Democritus and, one may almost say, all the others have fallen victims to opinions of this
sort. For Empedocles says that when men change their condition they change their knowledge;

For wisdom increases in men according to what is before them.

And elsewhere he says that:-

So far as their nature changed, so far to them always
Came changed thoughts into mind.

And Parmenides also expresses himself in the same way:

For as at each time the much-bent limbs are composed,
So is the mind of men; for in each and all men
Tis one thing thinks-the substance of their limbs:
For that of which there is more is thought.

A saying of Anaxagoras to some of his friends is also related,-that things would be for them such as they
supposed them to be. And they say that Homer also evidently had this opinion, because he made Hector,
when he was unconscious from the blow, lie 'thinking other thoughts',-which implies that even those who are
bereft of thought have thoughts, though not the same thoughts. Evidently, then, if both are forms of
knowledge, the real things also are at the same time 'both so and not so'. And it is in this direction that the
consequences are most difficult. For if those who have seen most of such truth as is possible for us (and these
are those who seek and love it most)-if these have such opinions and express these views about the truth, is it
not natural that beginners in philosophy should lose heart? For to seek the truth would be to follow flying
game.

But the reason why these thinkers held this opinion is that while they were inquiring into the truth of that
which is, they thought, 'that which is' was identical with the sensible world; in this, however, there is largely
present the nature of the indeterminate-of that which exists in the peculiar sense which we have explained;
and therefore, while they speak plausibly, they do not say what is true (for it is fitting to put the matter so
rather than as Epicharmus put it against Xenophanes). And again, because they saw that all this world of
nature is in movement and that about that which changes no true statement can be made, they said that of
course, regarding that which everywhere in every respect is changing, nothing could truly be affirmed. It was
this belief that blossomed into the most extreme of the views above mentioned, that of the professed

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Heracliteans, such as was held by Cratylus, who finally did not think it right to say anything but only moved
his finger, and criticized Heraclitus for saying that it is impossible to step twice into the same river; for he
thought one could not do it even once.

But we shall say in answer to this argument also that while there is some justification for their thinking that
the changing, when it is changing, does not exist, yet it is after all disputable; for that which is losing a
quality has something of that which is being lost, and of that which is coming to be, something must already
be. And in general if a thing is perishing, will be present something that exists; and if a thing is coming to be,
there must be something from which it comes to be and something by which it is generated, and this process
cannot go on ad infinitum.-But, leaving these arguments, let us insist on this, that it is not the same thing to
change in quantity and in quality. Grant that in quantity a thing is not constant; still it is in respect of its form
that we know each thing.-And again, it would be fair to criticize those who hold this view for asserting about
the whole material universe what they saw only in a minority even of sensible things. For only that region of
the sensible world which immediately surrounds us is always in process of destruction and generation; but
this is-so to speak-not even a fraction of the whole, so that it would have been juster to acquit this part of the
world because of the other part, than to condemn the other because of this.-And again, obviously we shall
make to them also the same reply that we made long ago; we must show them and persuade them that there is
something whose nature is changeless. Indeed, those who say that things at the same time are and are not,
should in consequence say that all things are at rest rather than that they are in movement; for there is nothing
into which they can change, since all attributes belong already to all subjects.

Regarding the nature of truth, we must maintain that not everything which appears is true; firstly, because
even if sensation-at least of the object peculiar to the sense in question-is not false, still appearance is not the
same as sensation.-Again, it is fair to express surprise at our opponents' raising the question whether
magnitudes are as great, and colours are of such a nature, as they appear to people at a distance, or as they
appear to those close at hand, and whether they are such as they appear to the healthy or to the sick, and
whether those things are heavy which appear so to the weak or those which appear so to the strong, and those
things true which appear to the slee ing or to the waking. For obviously they do not think these to be open
questions; no one, at least, if when he is in Libya he has fancied one night that he is in Athens, starts for the
concert hall.-And again with regard to the future, as Plato says, surely the opinion of the physician and that
of the ignorant man are not equally weighty, for instance, on the question whether a man will get well or
not.-And again, among sensations themselves the sensation of a foreign object and that of the appropriate
object, or that of a kindred object and that of the object of the sense in question, are not equally authoritative,
but in the case of colour sight, not taste, has the authority, and in the case of flavour taste, not sight; each of
which senses never says at the same time of the same object that it simultaneously is 'so and not so'. -But not
even at different times does one sense disagree about the quality, but only about that to which the quality
belongs. I mean, for instance, that the same wine might seem, if either it or one's body changed, at one time
sweet and at another time not sweet; but at least the sweet, such as it is when it exists, has never yet changed,
but one is always right about it, and that which is to be sweet is of necessity of such and such a nature. Yet all
these views destroy this necessity, leaving nothing to be of necessity, as they leave no essence of anything;
for the necessary cannot be in this way and also in that, so that if anything is of necessity, it will not be 'both
so and not so'.

And, in general, if only the sensible exists, there would be nothing if animate things were not; for there would
be no faculty of sense. Now the view that neither the sensible qualities nor the sensations would exist is
doubtless true (for they are affections of the perceiver), but that the substrata which cause the sensation
should not exist even apart from sensation is impossible. For sensation is surely not the sensation of itself, but
there is something beyond the sensation, which must be prior to the sensation; for that which moves is prior
in nature to that which is moved, and if they are correlative terms, this is no less the case.

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There are, both among those who have these convictions and among those who merely profess these views,
some who raise a difficulty by asking, who is to be the judge of the healthy man, and in general who is likely
to judge rightly on each class of questions. But such inquiries are like puzzling over the question whether we
are now asleep or awake. And all such questions have the same meaning. These people demand that a reason
shall be given for everything; for they seek a starting-point, and they seek to get this by demonstration, while
it is obvious from their actions that they have no conviction. But their mistake is what we have stated it to be;
they seek a reason for things for which no reason can be given; for the starting-point of demonstration is not
demonstration.

These, then, might be easily persuaded of this truth, for it is not difficult to grasp; but those who seek merely
compulsion in argument seek what is impossible; for they demand to be allowed to contradict themselves-a
claim which contradicts itself from the very first.-But if not all things are relative, but some are self-existent,
not everything that appears will be true; for that which appears is apparent to some one; so that he who says
all things that appear are true, makes all things relative. And, therefore, those who ask for an irresistible
argument, and at the same time demand to be called to account for their views, must guard themselves by
saying that the truth is not that what appears exists, but that what appears exists for him to whom it appears,
and when, and to the sense to which, and under the conditions under which it appears. And if they give an
account of their view, but do not give it in this way, they will soon find themselves contradicting themselves.
For it is possible that the same thing may appear to be honey to the sight, but not to the taste, and that, since
we have two eyes, things may not appear the same to each, if their sight is unlike. For to those who for the
reasons named some time ago say that what appears is true, and therefore that all things are alike false and
true, for things do not appear either the same to all men or always the same to the same man, but often have
contrary appearances at the same time (for touch says there are two objects when we cross our fingers, while
sight says there is one)-to these we shall say 'yes, but not to the same sense and in the same part of it and
under the same conditions and at the same time', so that what appears will be with these qualifications true.
But perhaps for this reason those who argue thus not because they feel a difficulty but for the sake of
argument, should say that this is not true, but true for this man. And as has been said before, they must make
everything relative-relative to opinion and perception, so that nothing either has come to be or will be
without some one's first thinking so. But if things have come to be or will be, evidently not all things will be
relative to opinion.- Again, if a thing is one, it is in relation to one thing or to a definite number of things; and
if the same thing is both half and equal, it is not to the double that the equal is correlative. If, then, in relation
to that which thinks, man and that which is thought are the same, man will not be that which thinks, but only
that which is thought. And if each thing is to be relative to that which thinks, that which thinks will be
relative to an infinity of specifically different things.

Let this, then, suffice to show (1) that the most indisputable of all beliefs is that contradictory statements are
not at the same time true, and (2) what consequences follow from the assertion that they are, and (3) why
people do assert this. Now since it is impossible that contradictories should be at the same time true of the
same thing, obviously contraries also cannot belong at the same time to the same thing. For of contraries, one
is a privation no less than it is a contrary-and a privation of the essential nature; and privation is the denial of
a predicate to a determinate genus. If, then, it is impossible to affirm and deny truly at the same time, it is also
impossible that contraries should belong to a subject at the same time, unless both belong to it in particular
relations, or one in a particular relation and one without qualification.

But on the other hand there cannot be an intermediate between contradictories, but of one subject we must
either affirm or deny any one predicate. This is clear, in the first place, if we define what the true and the false
are. To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of
what is not that it is not, is true; so that he who says of anything that it is, or that it is not, will say either what
is true or what is false; but neither what is nor what is not is said to be or not to be.-Again, the intermediate
between the contradictories will be so either in the way in which grey is between black and white, or as that
which is neither man nor horse is between man and horse, (a) If it were of the latter kind, it could not change

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into the extremes (for change is from not-good to good, or from good to not-good), but as a matter of fact
when there is an intermediate it is always observed to change into the extremes. For there is no change except
to opposites and to their intermediates, (b) But if it is really intermediate, in this way too there would have to
be a change to white, which was not from not-white; but as it is, this is never seen.-Again, every object of
understanding or reason the understanding either affirms or denies-this is obvious from the
definition-whenever it says what is true or false. When it connects in one way by assertion or negation, it
says what is true, and when it does so in another way, what is false.-Again, there must be an intermediate
between all contradictories, if one is not arguing merely for the sake of argument; so that it will be possible
for a man to say what is neither true nor untrue, and there will be a middle between that which is and that
which is not, so that there will also be a kind of change intermediate between generation and
destruction.-Again, in all classes in which the negation of an attribute involves the assertion of its contrary,
even in these there will be an intermediate; for instance, in the sphere of numbers there will be number which
is neither odd nor not-odd. But this is impossible, as is obvious from the definition.-Again, the process will
go on ad infinitum, and the number of realities will be not only half as great again, but even greater. For again
it will be possible to deny this intermediate with reference both to its assertion and to its negation, and this
new term will be some definite thing; for its essence is something different.- Again, when a man, on being
asked whether a thing is white, says 'no', he has denied nothing except that it is; and its not being is a
negation.

Some people have acquired this opinion as other paradoxical opinions have been acquired; when men cannot
refute eristical arguments, they give in to the argument and agree that the conclusion is true. This, then, is
why some express this view; others do so because they demand a reason for everything. And the
starting-point in dealing with all such people is definition. Now the definition rests on the necessity of their
meaning something; for the form of words of which the word is a sign will be its definition. -While the
doctrine of Heraclitus, that all things are and are not, seems to make everything true, that of Anaxagoras, that
there is an intermediate between the terms of a contradiction, seems to make everything false; for when
things are mixed, the mixture is neither good nor not-good, so that one cannot say anything that is true.

In view of these distinctions it is obvious that the one-sided theories which some people express about all
things cannot be valid-on the one hand the theory that nothing is true (for, say they, there is nothing to
prevent every statement from being like the statement 'the diagonal of a square is commensurate with the
side'), on the other hand the theory that everything is true. These views are practically the same as that of
Heraclitus; for he who says that all things are true and all are false also makes each of these statements
separately, so that since they are impossible, the double statement must be impossible too.-Again, there are
obviously contradictories which cannot be at the same time true-nor on the other hand can all statements be
false; yet this would seem more possible in the light of what has been said.-But against all such views we
must postulate, as we said above,' not that something is or is not, but that something has a meaning, so that
we must argue from a definition, viz. by assuming what falsity or truth means.

The Complete Works of Aristotle - Part 2