72 THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. [fi. IIT. 



animals, increase the quantity of milk, as beans given freely 

 to the sheep, goat, ox, and chimcera, 1 for they cause the udder 

 to be distended ; and it is a sign that there will be plenty 

 of milk when the udder is seen below before parturition. 



9. The milk lasts a long time in those that have it, if 

 they remain without sexual intercourse, and have proper 

 food ; and in sheep it lasts longer than in any other animals, 

 for the sheep may be milked for eight months , Altogether 

 the ruminating animals produce milk in greater abundance, 

 and more fitted for making cheese. Around Torona the 

 cows fail in their milk a few days before calving, but give 

 milk all the rest of the time. In women dark-coloured 

 milk is better for the children than that which is white ; 

 and black women are better nurses than white women. The 

 most nutritions milk is that which contains the most cheese, 

 but that which contains less cheese is better for infants. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



1. ALL sanguineous animals eject the spermatic fluid ; the 

 office it performs in generation, and how it is performed, 

 will be treated of in another place. In proportion to his 

 size man ejects more than other animals. This fluid, in ani- 

 mals covered with hair, is glutinous, in others it is not glu- 

 tinous ; in all it is white, so that Herodotus is mistaken 

 when he says that the Ethiopians have black semen. 2 The 

 semen comes out white and thick if it is healthy, but after 

 ejection it becomes thin and black ; it does not thicken with 

 cold, but becomes thin and watery, both in colour and den- 

 sity. By heat it coagulates and thickens, and when it has 

 been ejected for any time into the uterus, it comes out more 

 thick, and sometimes dry and twisted together. That which 

 is fruitful sinks in water, but the barren mixes with it. All 

 that Ctesias said about the semen of the elephant is false. 



1 Some kind of domestic goat, bvit not known, 



2 Herodotus, iii. c. 97, 101. 



