Further, if you touch the substances and rub them with your
fingers, the fat feels smooth and the egg rough. Some congers are
provided with fat but not with any spawn, others are unprovided with
fat but have egg-spawn as here described.
18
We have, then, treated pretty fully of the animals that fly in the
air or swim in the water, and of such of those that walk on dry land
as are oviparous, to wit of their pairing, conception, and the like
phenomena; it now remains to treat of the same phenomena in
connexion with viviparous land animals and with man.
The statements made in regard to the pairing of the sexes
apply partly to the particular kinds of animal and partly to all in
general. It is common to all animals to be most excited by the
desire of one sex for the other and by the pleasure derived from
copulation. The female is most cross-tempered just after
parturition, the male during the time of pairing; for instance,
stallions at this period bite one another, throw their riders, and
chase them. Wild boars, though usually enfeebled at this time as the
result of copulation, are now unusually fierce, and fight with one
another in an extraordinary way, clothing themselves with defensive
armour, or in other words deliberately thickening their hide by
rubbing against trees or by coating themselves repeatedly all over
with mud and then drying themselves in the sun.
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