BOOK X. Lxxxii. 169-LXXX111, 172 



gnaws it ofF. The viper is the only land animal that 

 bears eggs inside it ; they are of one colour and sofb 

 like fishes' roe. After two days she hatches the 

 young inside her uterus, and then bears them at the 

 rate of one a day, to the number of about twenty ; the 

 consequence is that the remaining ones get so tired 

 of the delay that they burst open their mother's 

 sides, so committing matricide. All the other kinds 

 of snakes incubate their eggs in a chitch on the 

 ground, and hatch out the young in the following year. 

 Crocodiles take turns to incubate, male and female. 



But let us give an account of the mode of repro- 

 duction of the remaining land animals as well. 



LXXXIII. Man is the only viviparous biped. ^f<iting 

 Man is the only animal with which mating for the animais. 

 first time is foUowed by repugnance," which is doubt- 

 less an augury of hfe as sprung from regrettable 

 source. All the other animals have fixed seasons of 

 the year for mating, but man, as has been said,* mates 

 at every hour of the day and night. All the others 

 experience satiety in couphng, but with man this is 

 almost entirely absent. Claudius Caesars consort 

 MessaUna, thinking that this would be a truly regal 

 triumph, selected for a competition in it a certain 

 maid who was the most notorious of the professional 

 prostitutes, and beat her in a twenty-four hours' 

 match, with a score of twenty-five. In the human 

 race the males have devised every out-of-the-way 

 form of sexual indulgence, crimes against nature, 

 but the females have invented abortion. How much 

 more guilty are we in this department than the 

 wld animals ! Hesiod "^ has stated that men have 

 stronger sexual appetites in winter and women in 

 summer. 



401 



