GENERATION OF ANIMALS, III. vi. 



semen manages to pass through the stomach and 

 arrive in the uterus, in view of the fact that the 

 stomach concocts everything that gets into it, as it 

 does the nourishment. Besides, these birds have a 

 uterus, just like other birds, and eggs can plainly be 

 seen up towards the diaphragm. (2) The weasel, 

 too, like other quadrupeds, has a uterus of exactly 

 the same sort as theirs ; and how is the embryo 

 going to make its way from that uterus into the 

 mouth ? This notion is really due to the fact that 

 the weasel produces very tiny young ones (as do 

 the rest of the fissipede animals, of which we shall 

 speak later)," and that it often carries them about 

 in its mouth. 



(3) There Ls another silly and extremely wrong- 

 headed story which is told about the trochos * and the 

 hyena, '^ to the eifect that they have two pudenda,, 

 male and female (there are many who assert this of' 

 the hyena ; Herodorus of Heraclea ** asserts it of the 

 trochos), and that whereas the trochos impregnates 

 itself, the hyena mounts and is mounted in alternate 

 years. In some localities, however, there is ample 

 opportunity for inspection, and the hyena has been 

 observed to possess one pudendum only ; but hyenas 

 have under the tail a Une similar to the female 

 pudendum. Both male and female ones have this 

 mark, but as the males are captured more frequently, 

 casual inspection has given rise to this erroneous 

 idea.* 



•* Heraclea Pontica, a colony of Megara, on the south shore 

 of the Black Sea, about 100 miles east of the Bosporus. 

 Herodorus (fl. c. 400 b.c.) was the father of the sophist Bryson 

 (both are mentioned at H.A. 563 a 7 and 615 a 9). He wrote 

 a History of Heracles, which seems to have contained a great 

 variety of matter. • See add. note, p. 565. 



317 



