LIFE AND DEATH. 327 



the hair of no creature is so much curled as wool is. The 

 rams generate not before the third year, and continue able 

 for generation until the eighth. The ewes bear young as 

 long as they live. The sheep is a diseased creature, and 

 rarely lives to his full age. 



12. The goat lives to the same age with the sheep, and 

 is not much unlike in other things, though he be a creature 

 more nimble, and of somewhat a firmer flesh, and so should 

 be longer lived ; but then he is much more lascivious, and 

 that shortens his life. 



13. The sow lives to fifteen years, sometimes to twenty ; 

 and though it be a creature of the moistest flesh, yet that 



seems to make nothing; to length of life. Of the wild boar 



i 



or sow we have nothing certain. 



14. The cat s age is betwixt six and ten years; a crea 

 ture nimble and full of spirit, whose seed (as ./Elian reports) 

 burneth the female; whereupon it is said, that the cat 

 conceives with pain, and brings forth with ease. A crea 

 ture ravenous in eating, rather swallowing down his meat 

 whole than feeding. 



15. Hares and coneys attain scarce to seven years, being 

 both creatures generative, and with young ones of several 

 conceptions in their bellies. In this they are unlike, that 

 the coney lives under ground, and the hare above ground. 

 And, again, that the hare is of a more duskish flesh. 



, 16. Birds, for the size of their bodies, are much lesser 

 than beasts ; for an eagle or swan is but a small thing in 

 comparison of an ox or horse, and so is an ostrich to an 

 elephant. 



17. Birds are excellently well clad, for feathers, for 

 warmth and close sitting to the body, exceed wool and hairs. 



18. Birds, though they hatch many young ones together, 

 yet they bear them not all in their bodies at once, but lay 

 their eggs by turns, whereby their fruit hath the more 

 plentiful nourishment whilst it is in their bodies. 



19. Birds chew little or nothing, but their meat is found 

 whole in their crops, notwithstanding they will break the 

 shells of fruit and pick out the kernels ; they are thought 

 to be of a very hot and strong concoction. 



20. The motion of birds in their flying is a mixed mo 

 tion, consisting of a moving of the limbs, and of a kind of 

 carriage, which is the most wholesome kind of exercise. 



21. Aristotle noted well touching the generation of birds 

 (but he transferred it ill to other living creatures), that the 

 seed of the male confers less to generation than the female, 



