B. V.] THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 107 



dyla 1 , phalangium, or any other insect that copulates. All 

 the phalangia that spin a web unite in the following manner. 

 The female draws a filament from the middle of the web, and 

 then the male draws it back again, and this they do a great 

 many times till they meet, and are united backwards, for 

 this kind of copulation suits them on account of the size 

 of their abdomen. The copulation of animals is accom- 

 plished in this manner. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



1. ALL animals have their proper season and age for coition ; 

 the nature of most creatures requires them to have inter- 

 course with each other when winter is turning into summer. 

 This is the spring season, in which all animals with wings, 

 feet, or fins, are incited to coition. Some copulate and pro- 

 duce their young in the autumn and winter, as some aquatic 

 and winged creatures. Mankind are ready at all seasons, 

 and so are many other animals which associate with man ; 

 this arises from greater warmth, and better food, and is 

 usual among those which are pregnant only for a short time, 

 as the hog, dog, and those birds which have frequent 

 broods. Many animals appear to adapt the season of coi- 

 tion to that which they consider the best for the nurture of 

 their young. 



2. Among mankind the male is more disposed for sexual 

 intercourse in the winter, and the female in the summer. 

 Birds, as I have observed, generally pair 'in the spring aud 

 summer, except the halcyon. This bird hatches its young 

 about the time of the winter solstice. "Whereupon fine days 

 occurring at this season are called halcyon days, seven before 

 the solstice and seven after it. As Simonides also writes 

 in his poems, " as when in the winter months Jupiter pre- 

 pares fourteen days, which mortals call the windless season, 

 the sacred nurse of the variegated halcyon." 



3. These fine days take place wherever it happens that 

 the solstice turns to the south, when the pleiades set in the 

 north. The bird is said to occupy seven days in building 

 its nest, and the other seven in bringing out and nursing 

 its young. The halcyon days are not always met with in this 



1 A beetle living at the roots of trees, Carabus. 



