GENERATION OF ANIMALS, I. xix. 



of heat is weaker ; and (4) the female answers to this 

 description, as we have said already. From which 

 we conclude that the bloodUke secretion which occurs 

 in the female must of necessity be a residue just as 

 much (as the secretion in the male). Of such a 

 character is the discharge of what is called the men- 

 strual fluid. 



Thus much then is evident : the menstrual fluid is 

 a residue, and it is the analogous thing in females to 

 the semen in males. Its behaviour shows that this 

 statement is correct. At the same time of life that 

 semen begins to appear in males and is emitted, the 

 menstrual discharge begins to flow in females, their 

 voice changes and their breasts begin to become 

 conspicuous ; and similarly, in the decline of hfe the 

 power to generate ceases in males and the menstrual 

 discharge ceases in females. Here are still further 

 indications that this secretion which females produce 

 is a residue. Speaking generally, unless the men- 

 strual discharge is suspended, women are not troubled 

 by haemorrhoids or bleeding from the nose or any 

 other such discharge, and if it happens that they are, 

 then the evacuations fall off in quantity, which sug- 

 gests that the substance secreted is being drawn off 

 to the other discharges. Again, their blood-vessels 

 are not so prominent as those of males : and females 

 are more neatly made ** and smoother than males, 

 because the residue which goes to produce those 

 characteristics in males is in females discharged 

 together with the menstrual fluid. We are bound to 

 hold, in addition, that for the same cause the bulk of 

 the body in female Vivipara is smaller than that of 

 the males, as of course it is only in Vivipara that the 



" Also implying " hairless," " delicate," " dainty." 



95 



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