Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten BooksAristotle
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten Books
Aristotle
Zoology -- Pre-Linnaean works
7. And if the wind blows from the cock partridge to the hen, these last
are impregnated; and often, if they hear the voice of the cock when
they are inclined for sexual intercourse, or if he flies over them,
they become pregnant from the breath of the cock. During the act of
intercourse, both sexes open their mouths, and protrude their tongues.
The true intercourse of oviparous fish is rarely observed, from the
rapidity with which the act is accomplished; for their intercourse has
been observed to take place in the manner described.
CHAPTER V.
1. All the malacia, as the polypus, sepia, and teuthis, approach each
other in the same manner, for they are united mouth to mouth; the
tentacula of one sex being adapted to those of the other; for when
the polypus has fixed the part called the head upon the ground, it
extends its tentacula, which the other adapts to the expansion of its
tentacula, and they make their acetabula answer together. And some
persons say that the male has an organ like a penis in that one of
its tentacula which contains the two largest acetabula. This organ is
sinewy, as far as the middle of the tentaculum, and they say that it is
all inserted into the nostril of the female.
2. The sepia and loligo swim about coiled together in this way,
and with their mouths and tentacula united, they swim in contrary
directions to each other. They adapt the organ called the nostril
of the male to the similar organ in the female; and the one swims
forwards, and the other backwards. The ova of the female are produced
in the part called the physeter, by means of which some persons say
that they copulate.
CHAPTER VI.
1. The malacostraca, as the carabi, astaci, carides, and such like
perform the act of intercourse like the retromingent animals, the one
lying upon its back, and the other placing its tail upon it. They
copulate on the approach of spring, near the land; for their sexual
intercourse has often been observed, and sometimes when the figs begin
to ripen.
2. The astaci and the carides perform the act in the same manner; but
the carcini approximate the fore part of their bodies to each other,
and adapt also the folds of their tails to each other. First of all,
the smaller carcinus mounts from behind, and when he has mounted, the
greater one turns on its side. In no other respect does the female
differ from the male, but that the tail, which is folded on the body,
is larger and more distant, and more thick set with appendages: upon
this the ova are deposited, and the excrement ejected. Neither sex is
furnished with an intromittent organ.
CHAPTER VII.
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