B. VTI.] THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 181 



are of a soft habit of body, and are smooth and not full of 

 veins, and in dark persons also more than fair ones. 



7. Until twenty-one years of age the semen is unpro- 

 ductive, afterwards it becomes fertile, though boys and girls 

 produce small and imperfect children : this is also the case 

 with other animals. Young girls conceive more readily, 

 but after conception suffer more in parturition, and their 

 bodies frequently become imperfect. Men of violent pas- 

 sions, and women that have borne many children, grow old 

 more rapidly than others ; nor does there appear to be any 

 increase after they have borne three children. Women of 

 violent sexual desires become more temperate after they 

 have borne several children. 



8. Women who have attained thrice seven years are well 

 adapted for child-bearing, and men also are capable of- be- 

 coming parents. Thin seminal fluid is barren. That which 

 is lumpy begets males ; what is thin and not clotted, females. 

 The beard also appears on the chin of men at the same 

 period. 



CHAPTER II. 



1. THE catamenia appear when the moon is on the wane, from 

 which some persons would argue that the moon is a female, 

 for the purification of women and the waning of the moon 

 occur together, and repletion occurs again in both after the 

 purification and waning. In few women the catamenia 

 occur every month, but in most at every third month. 

 Those in whom they continue for only two or three days 

 escape with ease: it is more difficult for those in whom 

 it continues for a longer time, for they suffer during the 

 whole period. In some the purification takes place all at 

 once, in others by degrees ; in all, however, the pain is con- 

 siderable as long as they are present. In many wo- 

 men, when the catamenia are nearly ready to appear, the 

 womb suffers so much from strangulation and disturbance, 

 until they are discharged. 



2. Conception naturally takes place immediately after 

 this discharge in women, and those who do not then con- 

 ceive, are usually barren. Some women, however, who 

 have never menstruated, conceive. Such persons contain 

 in themselves as much of the fluid as is usually left behind 



