And this is the season of spring, in which
almost all things that fly or walk or swim take to pairing. Some
animals pair and breed in autumn also and in winter, as is the case
with certain aquatic animals and certain birds. Man pairs and breeds
at all seasons, as is the case also with domesticated animals, owing
to the shelter and good feeding they enjoy: that is to say, with those
whose period of gestation is also comparatively brief, as the sow
and the bitch, and with those birds that breed frequently. Many
animals time the season of intercourse with a view to the right
nurture subsequently of their young. In the human species, the male is
more under sexual excitement in winter, and the female in summer.
With birds the far greater part, as has been said, pair and
breed during the spring and early summer, with the exception of the
halcyon.
The halcyon breeds at the season of the winter solstice.
Accordingly, when this season is marked with calm weather, the name of
'halcyon days' is given to the seven days preceding, and to as many
following, the solstice; as Simonides the poet says:
God lulls for fourteen days the winds to sleep
In winter; and this temperate interlude
Men call the Holy Season, when the deep
Cradles the mother Halcyon and her brood.
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