Copulation takes place in the early spring, near to the shore;
and, in fact, the process has often been observed in the case of all
these animals. Sometimes it takes place about the time when the figs
begin to ripen. Lobsters and carids copulate in like manner.
Crabs copulate at the front parts of one another, belly to
belly, throwing their overlapping opercula to meet one another:
first the smaller crab mounts the larger at the rear; after he has
mounted, the larger one turns on one side. Now, the female differs
in no respect from the male except in the circumstance that its
operculum is larger, more elevated, and more hairy, and into this
operculum it spawns its eggs and in the same neighbourhood is the
outlet of the residuum. In the copulative process of these animals
there is no protrusion of a member from one animal into the other.
8
Insects copulate at the hinder end, and the smaller individuals
mount the larger; and the smaller individual is I I is the male. The
female pushes from underneath her sexual organ into the body of the
male above, this being the reverse of the operation observed in
other creatures; and this organ in the case of some insects appears to
be disproportionately large when compared to the size of the body, and
that too in very minute creatures; in some insects the disproportion
is not so striking.
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