The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)Pliny, the Elder
History
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)
Pliny, the Elder
Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
Man is the only male among animals that has nipples, all the rest
having mere marks only in place of them. Among female animals even,
the only ones that have mammæ on the breast are those which can
nurture their young. No oviparous animal has mammæ, and those only
have milk that are viviparous; the bat being the only winged animal
that has it. As for the stories that they tell, about the screech-owl
ejecting milk from its teats upon the lips of infants, I look upon it
as utterly fabulous: from ancient times the name “strix,”[322] I am
aware, has been employed in maledictions, but I do not think it is well
ascertained what bird is really meant by that name.
(40.) The female ass is troubled with pains in the teats after it has
foaled, and it is for that reason that at the end of six months it
weans its young; while the mare suckles its young for nearly the whole
year. The solid-hoofed animals do not bear more than two young ones
at a time: they all of them have two paps, and nowhere but between
the hind legs. Animals with cloven feet and with horns, such as the
cow, for instance, have four paps, similarly situate, sheep and goats
two. Those which produce a more numerous progeny, and those which
have toes on the feet, have a greater number of paps distributed in
a double row all along the belly, such as the sow, for instance; the
better sorts have twelve, the more common ones two less: the same is
the case also with the female of the dog. Other animals, again, have
four paps situate in the middle of the belly, as the female panther;
others, again, two only, as the lioness. The female elephant has two
only, situate between the shoulders, and those not in the breast, but
without it, and hidden in the arm-pits: none of the animals which
have toes have the paps between the hind legs. The sow presents the
first teat to the first-born in each farrow, the first teat being the
one that is situate nearest to the throat. Each pig, too, knows its
own teat, according to the order in which it was born, and draws its
nourishment from that and no other: if its own suckling, too, should
happen to be withdrawn from any one of them, the pap will immediately
dry up, and shrink back within the belly: if there should be only one
pig left of all the farrow, that pap alone which has been assigned for
its nutriment when born, will continue to hang down for the purpose of
giving suck. The she-bear has four mammæ, the dolphin only two, at the
bottom of the belly; they are not easily visible, and have a somewhat
oblique direction: this is the only animal which gives suck while in
motion. The balæna and sea-calf also suckle their young by teats.
CHAP. 96. (41.)—THE MILK: THE BIESTINGS. CHEESE; OF WHAT MILK CHEESE
CANNOT BE MADE. RENNET; THE VARIOUS KINDS OF ALIMENT IN MILK.
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