Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten BooksAristotle
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten Books
Aristotle
Zoology -- Pre-Linnaean works
2. In all those that resemble the selache, the female is larger
than the male; and in nearly all fish the female is larger than the
male. The selache are those which have been mentioned; and the bos,
lamia, æetus, narce, batrachus, and all the galeode. All the selache
have been frequently observed to conduct themselves in this way. In
all viviparous creatures the act occupies a longer time than in the
oviparous. The dolphin and the cetacea also perform the act in the same
manner, for the male attaches himself to the female for neither a very
long, nor a very short time.
3. The males of some of the fish which resemble the selache differ from
the females, in having two appendages near the anus, which the females
have not, as in the galeodea; for these appendages exist in them all.
Neither fish nor any other apodal animal has testicles, but the males,
both of serpents and of fish, have two passages, which become full of a
seminal fluid at the season of coition; and all of them project a milky
fluid. These passages unite in one, as they do in birds; for birds have
two internal testes, and so have all oviparous animals with feet. In
the act of coition this single passage passes to, and is extended upon
the pudendum and receptacle of the female.
4. In viviparous animals with feet, the external passage for the
semen and the fluid excrement is the same: internally these passages
are distinct, as I said before in describing the distinctive parts
of animals. In animals which have no bladder, the anus is externally
united with the passage of the semen, internally the passages are
close together; and this is the same in both sexes: for none of them
have a bladder, except the tortoise. The female of this animal, though
furnished with a bladder, has but one passage; but the tortoise is
oviparous.
5. The sexual intercourse of the oviparous fish is less evident,
wherefore many persons suppose that the female is impregnated by
swallowing the semen of the male; and they have been frequently
observed to do this. This is seen at the season of coition, when the
females follow the males, and are observed to strike them on the
abdomen with their mouths, this causes the males to eject their semen
more rapidly. The males do the same with the ova of the females, for
they swallow them as they are extruded, and the fish are born from
those ova which remain.
6. In Phœnicia they use each sex for capturing the other; for having
taken the male cestreus, they entice the females with it, and so
enclose them in a net. They use the females in the same way for
catching the males. The frequent observation of these circumstances
appears to corroborate this manner of intercourse among them.
Quadrupeds also do the same thing, for at the season of coition both
sexes emit a fluid, and smell to each other's pudenda.
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