Latin Texts & Translations

The curiosity and wonder which have been excited in mankind by this subject, will not allow me any longer to defer giving an account of the generation of these animals. Fishes couple by rubbing their bellies ^[Note] against one another; an operation, however, that is performed with such extraordinary celerity as to escape the sight. Dolphins ^[Note] also, and other animals of the cetaceous kind, couple in a similar manner, though the time occupied in so doing is somewhat longer. The female fish, at the season for coupling, follows the male, and strikes against its belly with its muzzle; while the male in its turn, when the female is about to spawn, follows it and devours ^[Note] the eggs. But with them, the simple act of coupling is not sufficient ^[Note] for the purposes of reproduction; it is necessary for the male to pass among the eggs which the female has produced, in order to sprinkle them with its vitalizing fluid. This does not, however, reach all the eggs out of so vast a multitude; indeed, if it did, the seas and lakes would soon be filled, seeing that each female produces these eggs in quantities innumerable. ^[Note]

(51.) The eggs ^[Note] of fishes grow in the sea; some of them with the greatest rapidity, those of the muræna, for instance; others, again, somewhat more slowly. Those among the flat fishes, ^[Note] whose tails or stings are not in the way, as well as those of the turtle kind, couple the one upon the other: the polypus by attaching one of its feelers to the nostrils ^[Note] of the female, the sæpia and loligo, by means of the tongue; uniting the arms, they then swim contrary ways; these last also bring forth at the mouth. The polypi, ^[Note] however, couple with the head downwards towards the ground, while the rest of the soft ^[Note] fish couple backwards in the same manner as the dog; cray-fish and shrimps do the same, and crabs employ the mouth.

Frogs leap the one upon the other, the male with its forefeet clasping the armpits of the female, and with its hinder ones the haunches. The female produces tiny pieces of black flesh, which are known by the name of gyrini, ^[Note] and are only

to be distinguished by the eyes and tail; very soon, however, the feet are developed, and the tail, becoming bifurcate, forms the hind legs. It is a most singular thing, but, after a life of six months' duration, frogs melt away ^[Note] into slime, though no one ever sees how it is done; after which they come to life again in the water during the spring, just as they were ^[Note] before. This is effected by some occult operation of Nature, and happens regularly every year.

Mussels, also, and scallops are produced in the sand by the spontaneous ^[Note] operations of nature. Those which have a harder shell, such as the murex and the purple, are formed from a viscous fluid like saliva, just as gnats are produced from liquids turned sour, ^[Note] and the fish called the apua, ^[Note] "from the foam of the sea when warm, after the fall of a shower.

Those fish, again, which are covered with a stony coat, such as the oyster, are produced from mud in a putrid state, or else from the foam that has collected around ships which have been lying for a long time in the same position, about posts driven into the earth, and more especially around logs of wood. ^[Note] It has been discovered, of late years, in the oyster—Beds, ^[Note] that

the animal discharges an impregnating liquid, ^[Note] which has the appearance of milk. Eels, again, rub themselves against rocks, upon which, the particles ^[Note] which they thus scrape from off their bodies come to life, such being their only means of reproduction. The various kinds of fishes do not couple out of their own kind, with the exception of the squatina and the ray. ^[Note] The fish that is produced from the union of these two, resembles a ray in the fore part, and bears a name among the Greeks compounded of the two. ^[Note]

Certain animals are produced only at certain seasons of the year, both in water and on the land, such, for instance, as scallops, snails, and leeches, in the spring, which also disappear at stated periods. Among fishes, the wolf-fish ^[Note] and the trichias ^[Note] bring forth twice in the year, as also do all kinds of rock-fish; the mullet and the chalcis ^[Note] thrice in the year, the cyprinus ^[Note] six times, the scorpæna ^[Note] twice, and the sargus in spring and autumn. Among the flat-fish, the squatina brings forth twice

a year, being the only ^[Note] one that does so at the setting of the ^[Note] Vergiliæ in autumn. Most fish spawn in the three months of April, May, and June. The salpa brings forth in the autumn, the sargus, the torpedo, and the squalus ^[Note] about the time of the autumnal equinox. The soft fishes ^[Note] bring forth in spring, the sæpia every month in the year; its eggs adhere together with a kind of black glutinous substance, in appearance like a bunch of grapes, and the male is very careful to go among them and breathe ^[Note] upon them, as otherwise they would be barren. The polypi couple in winter, and produce eggs in the spring twisted in spiral clusters, in a similar manner to the tendrils of the vine; and so remarkably prolific are they, that when the animal is killed in a state of pregnancy, the cavities of the head are quite unable to contain the multitude ^[Note] of eggs enclosed therein. They bring forth these eggs at the fiftieth day, but in consequence of the vast number of them, great multitudes perish. Cray-fish, and other sea-animals with a thinner crust, lay their eggs one upon the other, and then sit upon them. The female polypus sometimes sits upon its eggs, and at other times closes the entrance of its retreat by spreading out its feelers, interlaced like a net. The sæpia brings forth on dry land, among reeds or such sea-weed as it may find growing there, and hatches its eggs on the fifteenth day. The loligo produces its eggs out at sea, clustered together like those of the sæpia. The purple, ^[Note] the murex, and other fishes of the same kind, bring forth in the spring. Sea-urchins have their eggs at full moon during the winter; sea-snails ^[Note] also are produced during the winter season.