In the copulation of horses, dogs, cats, and the like, the female presents her organ rigid and injected to the penis of the male. And this also takes place in birds which, if they be tame and suffer themselves to be handled, when inflamed with desire present their parts, which will then be found resisting and hard to the finger.
Birds are sometimes so lustful, that if you but stroke their backs gently with your hand, they will immediately lie down and expose and protrude their uterine orifice; and if this part be touched with the finger, they will not fail to proclaim their satisfaction. And that the females may thereby be made to lay eggs, as testified to by Aristotle,[135] I have myself found in the case of the blackbird, thrush, and others. I learned the fact, indeed, in former years by accident, and to my detriment; for my wife had a beautiful parrot, a great pet, learned and talkative enough, and so tame that it was allowed to roam at liberty about the house: when its mistress was absent it sought her everywhere; on her return it caressed her, and loudly proclaimed its joy; when called to it would answer; would fly to its mistress, and then seizing her clothes with beak and feet alternately, it climbed to her shoulder, whence creeping down the arm, it reached her hand, its usual seat. When ordered to speak or to sing, it would obey, although it were the night season and quite dark. Full of play and lasciviousness, it would frequently sit in its mistress’s lap, where it loved to have her scratch its head and stroke its back, upon which, fluttering with its wings and making a gentle noise, it testified the pleasure it experienced. I believed all this to proceed from his usual familiarity and love of being noticed; for I always regarded the creature as a male, by reason of his proficiency in talking and singing. For among birds, the females rarely sing or challenge one another by their note; the males alone solace their mates by their tuneful warblings, and call them to the rites of love. And it is on this account that Aristotle says,[136] “If partridges be placed over against the males, and the wind blow towards them from where the males sit, they are impregnated and conceive. They even for the most part conceive from the note of the male bird, if they be in season and full of desire. The flight of the male over them will also have the same effect, the male bird casting down a fertilizing influence upon the female.” Now this happens especially in the spring season, whence the poet sings:[137]
Earth teems in Spring, and craves the genial seed.
The almighty father, Æther, then descends,
In fertilizing showers, into the lap
Of his rejoicing spouse, and mingling there
In wide embrace sustains the progeny
Innumerous that springs. The pathless woods
Then ring with the wild bird’s song, and flocks and herds
Disport and spend the livelong day in love.
Not long after the caressings mentioned, the parrot, which had lived in health for many years, fell sick, and by and by being seized with repeated attacks of convulsions, seated in the lap of its mistress, it expired, grievously regretted. Having opened the body in search of the cause of death, I discovered an egg, nearly perfect, in the uterus, but in consequence of the want of a male, in a state of putrefaction; and this, indeed, frequently happens among birds confined in cages, which show desire for the company of the male.
These and other instances induce me to believe that the common fowl and the pheasant do not only solace their females with their crowing, but farther give them the faculty of producing eggs by its means; for when the cock crows in the night some of the hens perched near him bestir themselves, clapping their wings and shaking their heads; shuddering and gesticulating as they are wont to do after intercourse.
A certain bird, as large again as a swan, and which the Dutch call a cassowary, was imported no long time ago from the island of Java, in the East Indies, into Holland. Ulysses Aldrovandus[138] gives a figure of this bird, and informs us that it is called an emeu by the Indians. It is not a two-toed bird, like the ostrich, but has three toes on each foot, one of which is furnished with a spur of such length, strength, and hardness, that the creature can easily kick through a board two fingers’ breadth in thickness. The cassowary defends itself by kicking forwards. In the body, legs, and thighs it resembles the ostrich; it has not a broad bill like the ostrich however, but one that is rounded and black. On its head, by way of crest, it has an orbicular protuberant horn. It has no tongue, and devours everything that is presented to it—stones, coals, even though alight, pieces of glass—all without distinction. Its feathers sprout in pairs from each particular quill, and are of a black colour, short and slender, approaching to hair or down in their characters. Its wings are very short and imperfect. The whole aspect of the creature is truculent, and it has numbers of red and blue wattles longitudinally disposed along the neck.
This bird remained for more than seven years in Holland, and was then sent, among other presents, by the illustrious Maurice Prince of Orange, to his serene majesty our King James, in whose gardens it continued to live for a period of upwards of five years. By and by, however, when a pair of ostriches, male and female, were brought to the same place, and the cassowary heard and saw these in a neighbouring inclosure, at their amours, unexpectedly it began to lay eggs, excited, as I imagine, through sympathy with the acts of an allied genus; I say unexpectedly, for all who saw the cassowary, judging from the weapons and ornaments, had regarded it as a male rather than a female. Of these eggs, one was laid entire, and this I opened, and found it perfect: the yelk surrounded by the white, the chalazæ attached on either side, and a small cavity in the blunt end; there was also a cicatricula or macula alba present; the shell was thick, hard, and strong; and having taken off the top, I had it formed into a cup, in the same way as ostrichs’ eggs are commonly fashioned. This egg was somewhat less than that of an ostrich, and, as I have said, perfect in all respects. Undoubtedly, however, it was a sort of accidental egg, and, by reason of the absence of the male, unfruitful. I predicated the death of the cassowary as likely to happen soon when she began laying, moved to do so by what Aristotle says:[139] “Birds become diseased and die unless they produce fruitful eggs.” And my prediction came true not long afterwards. On opening the body of the cassowary, I discovered an imperfect and putrid egg in the upper part of the uterus, as the cause of its untimely death, just as I had found the same thing in the parrot, and other instances besides.
Many birds, consequently, the more salacious they are, the more fruitful are they; and occasionally, when abundantly fed, or from some other cause, they will even lay eggs without the access of the male. It rarely happens, however, that the eggs so produced are either perfected or laid; the birds are commonly soon seized with serious disorders, and at length die. The common fowl nevertheless not only conceives eggs, but lays them, quite perfect in appearance too; but they are always wind eggs, and incapable of producing a chick. In like manner many insects, among the number silkworms and butterflies, conceive eggs and lay them, without the access of the male, but they are still adventitious and barren. Fishes also do the same.
It is of the same significance in these animals when they conceive eggs, as it is in young women when their uterus grows hot, their menses flow, and their bosoms swell—in a word, when they become marriageable; and who, if they continue too long unwedded, are seized with serious symptoms—hysterics, furor uterinus, &c. or fall into a cachectic state, and distemperatures of various kinds. All animals, indeed, grow savage when in heat, and unless they are suffered to enjoy one another, become changed in disposition. In like manner women occasionally become insane through ungratified desire, and to such a height does the malady reach in some, that they are believed to be poisoned, or moon-struck, or possessed by a devil. And this would certainly occur more frequently than it does, without the influence of good nurture, respect for character, and the modesty that is innate in the sex, which all tend to tranquillize the inordinate passions of the mind.