GENERATION OF ANIMALS, I. xx. 



is the same \^ith fruit when it is forming. The 

 nourishment is present right enough, even before it 

 has been strained off, but it stands in need of being 

 acted upon in order to purify it. That is why when 

 the former is mixed with the semen, and when the 

 latter is mixed %\ith pure nourishment," the one 

 effects generation, and the other effects nutrition. 



An indication that the female emits no semen is 

 actually afforded by the fact that in intercourse the 

 pleasure is produced in the same place as in the male 

 by contact, yet this is not the place from which the 

 liquid is emitted.'' Further, this discharge does not 

 occur in all females, but only in those which are 

 blooded, and not in all of them, but only in those 

 whose uterus is not close by the diaphragm and which 

 are not oviparous ; nor again in those which have an 

 analogous substance instead of blood (they have 

 another composition which is for them what blood is 

 for the others). Dryness of the body is the cause why 

 neither these animals nor the blooded ones I men- 

 tioned (viz., those whose uterus is low down and which 

 are not oviparous) produce this evacuation ; their 

 dr}-ness leaves over but little residue, only enough in 

 fact for generation, not enough to be emitted exter- 

 nally. Take next the animals which are \-i\iparous 

 but not previously oviparous : this means man, and 

 those quadrupeds uhich bend their hind legs in- 

 wards.'' The menstrual discharge occurs in all of 

 these ; though if they are deformed ^ in any respect 



main bulk of the body and not away from it, so that the 

 angle of the bent joint points away from the body. " In- 

 wards" thus has no reference to "knock knees." See I.A. 

 704 a 19 flf.. Til a 8 ff. ; H.A. 498 a 3 ff. ; and my diagram 

 in Partx of Animals (Loeb), p. 433. 

 "* See Ihtrod. § U. 



105 



