1. Insects approach each other from behind, and the smaller one subsequently mounts upon the larger. The male is always the smaller. The female, which is below, inserts a member into the male, which is above, and not the male into the female, as in other animals. In some kinds this organ appears large in proportion to the size of the body, especially in those that are small, in others it is less. The organ may be plainly discerned if two flies are separated while in the act of coition. They are separated from each other with difficulty, for the act of intercourse in such animals occupies a long time. This may be plainly discerned by common observation, as in the fly and cantharis. 2. All adopt the same method, the fly, cantharis, spondyla[160], phalangium, or any other insect that copulates. All the phalangia that spin a web unite in the following manner. The female draws a filament from the middle of the web, and then the male draws it back again, and this they do a great many times till they meet, and are united backwards, for this kind of copulation suits them on account of the size of their abdomen. The copulation of animals is accomplished in this manner. [160] A beetle living at the roots of trees, Carabus. CHAPTER VIII. 1. All animals have their proper season and age for coition; the nature of most creatures requires them to have intercourse with each other when winter is turning into summer. This is the spring season, in which all animals with wings, feet, or fins, are incited to coition. Some copulate and produce their young in the autumn and winter, as some aquatic and winged creatures. Mankind are ready at all seasons, and so are many other animals which associate with man; this arises from greater warmth, and better food, and is usual among those which are pregnant only for a short time, as the hog, dog, and those birds which have frequent broods. Many animals appear to adapt the season of coition to that which they consider the best for the nurture of their young. 2. Among mankind the male is more disposed for sexual intercourse in the winter, and the female in the summer. Birds, as I have observed, generally pair in the spring and summer, except the halcyon. This bird hatches its young about the time of the winter solstice. Whereupon fine days occurring at this season are called halcyon days, seven before the solstice and seven after it. As Simonides also writes in his poems, "as when in the winter months Jupiter prepares fourteen days, which mortals call the windless season, the sacred nurse of the variegated halcyon." 3. These fine days take place wherever it happens that the solstice turns to the south, when the pleiades set in the north. The bird is said to occupy seven days in building its nest, and the other seven in bringing out and nursing its young. The halcyon days are not always met with in this country at the time of the solstice, but they always occur in the Sicilian Sea. The halcyon produces five eggs.