1. The sexual intercourse of sanguineous and oviparous quadrupeds takes place in the spring. They do not, however, all copulate at the same season; but some in the spring, others in the summer or autumn, as the season is appropriate for bringing up the young of each species. The tortoise produces hard, two-coloured eggs, like those of birds. Having deposited her eggs, she buries them, and makes a beaten place above them. When this is done, she sits upon them. The eggs are hatched the following year. The emys goes out of the water to deposit her eggs, and digs a hole like a cask, in which she places her eggs and leaves them. Having left them alone for less than thirty days, she digs them up again and hatches them and leads them at once to the water. The marine turtles deposit their eggs in the earth like domestic birds, and cover them up with earth and sit upon them during the night. They produce a great many eggs, as many as an hundred.
2. The saurians and both the land and river crocodiles produce their eggs upon the land. Those of the lizards are hatched spontaneously in the earth; for the lizard does not live a whole year, for it is said to live only six months. The river crocodile produces as many as sixty eggs, which are white. She sits upon them for sixty days, for they live a long while. A very large animal is produced from these small eggs; for the egg is not larger than that of a goose, and the young is in proportion, but when full grown the creature measures seventeen cubits. Some persons say that it grows as long as it lives.
Chapter XXVIII.
Among serpents the viper is externally viviparous, but first of all internally oviparous. The ovum, like that of fish, is of one colour and soft skinned. The young are produced in the upper part. They are not enclosed in a shelly covering, neither are the ova of fish. The little vipers are produced in a membrane, which they rupture on the third day, and sometimes they make their escape by eating their way through the mother. They are produced one by one in the course of a day, and their number often exceeds twenty. Other serpents are externally oviparous, but their ova are joined together like women's necklaces. When the female deposits her eggs in the soil, she incubates upon them. These also are hatched in the second year. This is the manner of the production of serpents, insects, and of oviparous quadrupeds.
BOOK THE SIXTH.
Chapter I.
1. The above describes the manner of reproduction in serpents, insects, and oviparous quadrupeds. All birds are oviparous, but the season of sexual intercourse and of bringing out their young is not the same in all; for some copulate and produce eggs at all seasons, as we may say, as the domestic fowl and the pigeon, for the domestic fowl lays eggs all the year round, except two months at the winter solstice. Some of the finest birds will lay sixty eggs before they want to sit, though these are not so fruitful as the more common kinds. The Adrianic fowls are very small, but they lay every day; but they are cruel, and often kill their chickens. Their colour is variegated. Some of the domestic birds lay twice a-day, and some have been known to lay so many eggs that they died very soon.
2. The domestic fowls, as I said, lay continually; but the pigeon, dove, trygon, and œnas lay twice a-year; and the pigeon ten times. The greatest number of birds lay in the spring; and some of them produce many young, and this in two ways; some producing their young often, as the pigeon; others producing many at a time, as the domestic fowl. All birds with crooked claws, except the cenchris,[189] lay but few eggs. This bird lays the most of any of its class; for it has been observed to produce four, and it even produces more. Some birds lay their eggs in nests; but those that do not fly, as partridges and quails, do not make nests, but lay their eggs on the ground and cover them over with rubbish. The lark and tetrix[190] do the same.
3. These birds make their nests in a place sheltered from the wind. That which the Beotians call ærops[191] is the only bird that makes its nests in caverns in the earth. The cichlæ[192] make nests of mud like swallows in the tops of trees; but they place them in order close to each other, so that from their proximity they look like a chain of nests. Among the birds which make solitary nests, the hoopoe makes no real nest, but lays its eggs in the stumps of hollow trees, without building at all. The coccyx[193] lays its eggs in houses and holes in rocks. The tetrix, which the Athenians call "urax," makes no nest on the ground or in trees, but in herbaceous plants.