10. A wild boar will beget till he is three years old, but the progeny of older animals is inferior; for he has not the same power or strength. He generally goes to the female when full of food, and without having been to another female, or, if not, the act of coition is of shorter duration, and the progeny smaller. The sow produces the smallest number of pigs at her first litter, but at the second they are more flourishing. She also produces young when old, but the act of coition is longer. At fifteen years old, she no longer produces young, but becomes fierce.
11. If well-fed, she will be more ready for sexual intercourse, whether young or old; and, if rapidly fattened when pregnant, she has less milk after parturition. As regards the age of the parent, the young of those in the prime of their age are the best, and those that are born at the beginning of winter. The worst are those born in the summer, for they are small, and thin, and weak. If the male is well fed, he is ready for sexual intercourse at all seasons, by day as well as by night; but if not well fed, he is most ready in the morning, and as he grows old, he becomes less disposed for it, as was said before. And it frequently happens that those which are impotent, through age or weakness, and cannot copulate readily, will approach the female as she lies down tired with long standing. The sow generally becomes pregnant when she hangs down her ears in her heats; if she is not pregnant, she becomes heated again.
12. Bitches do not copulate during the whole of their life, but only to a certain period. Their coition and pregnancy generally takes place till they are twelve years old, but both males and females have been known to perform the act of coition at eighteen and even twenty years of age; but old age takes away from both sexes the power of reproduction, as in other animals.
13. The camel is retroningent, and performs the act of intercourse in the manner already described; the period of its coition in Arabia is in the month of September; the female goes with young twelve months, and produces one foal, for the animal is one of those which produce but one. Both the male and female arrive at puberty at the age of three years, and the female is ready for the male again at the end of a year after parturition.
14. The elephant arrives at puberty, the earliest at ten years of age, the latest at fifteen, and the male at five or six years old. The season for the intercourse of the sexes is in the spring: and the male is ready again at the end of three years, but he never touches again a female whom he has once impregnated. Her period of gestation is two years, and then she produces one calf, for the elephant belongs to the class of animals which have but one young one at a time. The young one is as large as a calf of two or three months old. This, then, is the nature of the sexual intercourse of those animals which perform this function.
Chapter XIII.
1. We must now treat of the mode of reproduction, both of those animals which use sexual intercourse, and those which do not; and, first of all, we will speak of the testacea, for this is the only entire class which is not reproduced by sexual intercourse. The purpuræ collect together in the spring, and produce what is called their nidamental capsules (melicera), for it is like honey-comb, though not so deeply cut, but, as it were, made up of the white pods of vetches. These capsules have neither opening nor perforation, nor are the purpuræ produced from them; but both these and other testacea are produced from mud and putrefaction. But this substance is an excrementitious matter both in the purpura and the ceryx, for these last also produce similar capsules.
2. The testacea which produce these capsules are generated in the same way as the rest of their class, but more readily when there are homogeneous particles pre-existing among them; for, when they deposit their nidamental capsules, they emit a clammy mucus, from which the scales of the capsules are formed. When all these have been deposited, they emit upon the ground a sort of chyle, and small purpuræ spring up upon the same spot and adhere to the larger purpuræ, though some of these can hardly be distinguished by their form. But if they are taken before the breeding season, they will sometimes breed in the baskets, not indeed anywhere, but they collect together like they do in the sea, and the narrow limits of their place of captivity make them hang together like bunches of fruit.
3. There are many kinds of purpuræ, some of which are large, as those which are found near Sigeum and Lectum; and others are small, as those in the Euripus and on the Carian coast. Those found in gulfs are large and rough. Most of them contain a black pigment; in others it is red, and the quantity of it small. Some of the largest weigh as much as a mina. Near the shore and on the coast they are small, and the pigment is red. Those which are natives of the north contain a black pigment; in those of the south it is red, generally speaking.
4. They are taken in the spring, about the time that they deposit their capsules, but they are never taken during the dog-days, for then they do not feed, but conceal themselves and get out of the way. The pigment is contained between the mecon and the neck. The union of these parts is thick, and the colour is like a white membrane; this is taken away. When this is bruised, the pigment wets and stains the hand. Something resembling a vein passes through it, and this appears to be the pigment; the nature of the rest resembles alum.[164] The pigment is the worst at the period of depositing their nidamental capsules.