GENERATION OF ANIMALS, IV. viii. 



serviceable. But the fact that it is fiilly concocted 

 at the final stages is due also (2) to another cause — 

 the necessary cause, which is what we should expect, 

 for, to begin with, the secretion of this particular 

 residue is used up for the formation of the embryos ; 

 and in every animal the nourishment is the sweetest 

 ingredient they possess and the most concocted, so 

 that when this sweet substance is drawn oiF, what 

 remains is bound to be briny and ill-savoured.^ 

 When, however, the fetations are approaching their 

 completion, then there is more surplus, residue, 

 because less of it is being used up, and it is sweeter, 

 since the well-concocted residue is no longer being 

 drawn off to the same extent : it is no longer being 

 expended upon the moulding of the embryo, but upon 

 the small growth which it is making,** as though the 

 embryo had by now, being completed, reached a 

 stationary point (since a fetation, too, has its point 

 of completion.) " That is why it makes its way out, 

 and changes over to anether process of formation as 

 now possessing all that belongs to it, and it no 

 longer takes what does not belong to it ** ; and that 

 is the time when the milk becomes serviceable. 



The milk collects in the upper part of the body, in 

 the breasts, and this is accounted for by the original 

 order of the body's construction. The part of the 

 body above the diaphragm is the controlling part of 

 the animal. (The part below is the place for the 

 nourishment and the residue, in order that those 

 animals which move about may have within them a 



dent state of existence ; and even the wind has its yiveais and 

 <^iais (778 a 2), where see note ; and also cf. 737 b 9. 



'' This remark is obscure, and the sentence may be an 

 interpolation. See the parallel passage, 777 a. 22 S. 



469 



