GENERATION OF ANIMALS, 265 



it can produce nothing, becaufe it is only the 

 relidue of the organic particles that had not 

 been employed in the produdion of the young. 

 Almoft all animals, man excepted, have cer- 

 tain annual feafons appropriated to the purpofes 

 of generation. To birds, fprlng is the feafon of 

 love : Carps, and feveral other fifhes, fpawn in 

 June and Auguft. Pikes, and iome other fifhes, 

 fpawn in the fpring. Cats have three feafons 

 annually, in the months of January, May, and 

 September. The roe- deer rut in December, 

 wolfs, and foxes in January, horfes in fummer, 

 ftags in September and October; and almoft all 

 infects generate during the autumn only. Some 

 animals, as the infe<Sts, are totally exhaufted by 

 generation, and die foon after. Others, though 

 they die not, become feeble, are much ema- 

 ciated, and require a confiderable time to repair 

 the great wafte of their organic fubftance. O- 

 thers are lefs affected, and are capable of fre- 

 quently renewing their amours ; laftly, man is 

 very little affeded, or, rather, he quickly re- 

 pairs the lofs, and therefore is, at all times, in 

 a condition for propagating. All thefe varieties 

 depend folely on the particular conftrudion of 

 the animal organs. The Jimits fixed by Nature 

 upon the modes of exifting arc equally confpi- 

 cuous in the manner of taking and digefting the 

 food, in the means employed for retaining or 

 throwing it out of the body, and in the inftru- 

 ynents by which the organic particles necc.flary 



to 



