GENERATION OF ANIMALS. 261 



no fexes, are equally fathers and mothers, and 

 produce of ihemfelves without copulation. 

 Though they feem to copulate at pleafure, we 

 are unable to difcover the ufe of the jundion, or 

 whether it be really a fexual embrace ; unlefs we 

 Ihould fuppofe Nature to have endowed this fmall 

 infed: with generative faculties fuperior to thofe 

 of any other fpecies of animals, and to have be- 

 ftowed on every individual not only the power 

 of reprodudtion, but likewife the pow£r of mul- 

 tiplying by fexual <:ommunications. 



But, -whatever varieties take place in the ge- 

 neration of different fpecies of animals. Nature 

 prepares the body for it by a new produ<Slion, 

 which, whether it be external or internal, always 

 precedes generation : Immediately before the 

 leafon of impregnation, the ovaria of oviparous 

 animals, and the tefticles of the females of the 

 viviparous, undergo a confiderable change. The 

 oviparous animals produce eggs, which gradual- 

 ly increafe in fize, till they quit the ovarium 

 and fall into the canal of the uterus, where they 

 receive their white, their membranes, and their 

 (hell. This produdion marks the fecundity of 

 the female, and without which generation could 

 not be effcdted. In viviparous females, in the 

 {i\me manner, one or more glandulous bodies ap- 

 pear upon the teflicles, which gradually grow 

 under the membranes that cover them. "I'hefe 

 glandulous bodies increafe, and pierce, or rather 

 elevate the membrane of the tellicle ; ijind, when 



R 3 they 



