is not laborious in horses as it is in oxen. Next to the human subject, the horse in both sexes is the most lascivious of all animals. The sexual intercourse of the younger horses takes place before the usual age according to the goodness and abundance of their food. The horse generally produces but one colt, or sometimes two at the outside. The hemionus has also been known to produce two, but this is considered extraordinary. The horse begins sexual intercourse at thirty months old, so that it can produce proper colts when it has done changing its teeth. Some have been known, they say, to impregnate mares while changing their teeth, unless they were naturally barren.
2. The horse has forty teeth. It sheds its four first teeth at thirty months old, two above and two below. A year afterwards, it sheds four more in the same manner, two above and two below. And again, at the end of the next year, it sheds four more in the same manner. When it is four years and a half old, it sheds no more; and individuals have been known to shed them all at first, and others that have shed them all in the last year. These circumstances are rare, so that it usually happens that the horse is most fit for sexual intercourse at four years and a half old. The older horses are more full of semen, both the males and the females, than younger ones. Horses will copulate both with their dams and with their offspring; and it is thought to be a sign that the herd is complete, when they copulate with their offspring. The Scythians ride upon their pregnant mares when the embryo begins to turn in the uterus, and say that it renders parturition more easy. All other quadrupeds lie down in the act of parturition; wherefore their young are always produced lying on their side; but when the mare feels that the time for parturition is approaching, she stands upright to part with her colt.
3. Horses generally live eighteen or twenty years; some live twenty-five or thirty years; but if they are carefully treated, their life may be extended to fifty years. Thirty years, however, is a very long life for the male, and twenty-five for the female. Some have been known to live forty years. Males live a shorter time than females, on account of the act of sexual intercourse; and those that are brought up separately longer than those which live in herds. Females attain their proper length and height in five years; the males in six. In six more years the fulness of body is acquired, which continues till they are twenty years old. The females attain perfection more rapidly than the males; but in the uterus the males are the more rapidly developed. This is also the case in the human subject. This also takes place in those animals which produce several at a birth.
4. They say that the mule sucks for six months, but the mare will not permit it to come afterwards, because it drags and hurts her. The horse sucks for a longer time. The horse and the mule attain perfection after casting their teeth; and when they have cast them all, it is not easy to know their age. Wherefore they say that, before casting its teeth, the horse has its mark, which it has not afterwards. After the teeth have been changed, the age is usually ascertained by the canine tooth; for that in riding horses is generally worn down, for the bridle rubs against it. In horses which have not been ridden, it is large and not worn. In young horses it is small and sharp.
5. The male copulates at all seasons, and as long as he lives; the female also as long as she lives; and at all seasons, unless they have on a fastening or some other hindrance, no peculiar time is appropriated for copulation in either sex, for there is no period of coition when they cannot also bring up their young. In Opus there was a horse in a herd which engendered when he was forty years old; but it was necessary to lift up his fore legs for him. Mares begin to desire sexual intercourse in the spring; and when the mare has foaled, she does not become pregnant again immediately, but waits for a time, and produces better foals at the end of four or five years. It is quite necessary that she should wait one year, and should pass through a fallow, as it were.
6. The horse, then, bears young at intervals, as I have observed; but the ass is not subject to intervals. Some mares are quite barren, and others, though they conceive, yet do not produce their young; and they give as a reason for this, that upon dissection the fœtus was found to contain other reniform bodies round the kidneys, so that it appeared to have four kidneys. As soon as the mare has foaled, she eats the chorion, and bites from the head of her foal the substance called hippomanes. In size this substance is somewhat less than a dry fig.
Its form is flat and round, and its colour black. If any person is at hand to take it before the mare, and she smells it, the scent renders her wild and mad. For this reason it is sought after and collected by poisoners. If an ass copulates with a pregnant mare, the pre-existing fœtus is destroyed. Those who keep herds of horses do not place a leader over them, as they do over oxen, for they are not naturally stationary, but active and wandering.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1. The male and female ass begin to copulate at thirty months old, and shed their first teeth at the same period. They lose their second pair of teeth six months afterwards, and their third and fourth in the same way. These fourth teeth are called the marking teeth. Sometimes the ass has become pregnant and brought up its young at a year old. The she ass parts with the semen after coition, if she is not prevented; and therefore, immediately after coition, they beat her and drive her about. She foals in the twelfth month, and generally produces one foal, for this is their nature, though cases of twin births have occurred. If an ass mounts upon a mare, he destroys her fœtus, as I observed before.
But the horse does not destroy the fœtus of the ass, if the mare has been impregnated by a he ass.
2. The pregnant female has milk at the end of ten months. After parturition, she will admit the male on the seventh day, and is very easily impregnated at that period. She will also receive it afterwards.
If she does not produce young before losing her marking teeth, she can never be impregnated all the rest of her life. She does not like men to be witnesses of her parturition, nor will she produce her young in the day time; but when it is dark she retires, and so produces her young. She continues to procreate during her whole life, if she has begun before losing her marking teeth. The ass lives more than thirty years, and the female longer than the male. When a horse copulates with an ass, or a he ass with a mare, abortion is more frequent than between congeners, a horse with a mare, or two asses together. When the horse and ass are mixed together, the period of gestation follows from the male parent. I mean to say that it takes the same time as if the parents had been congeners; but in size, form, and strength the produce of their union generally resembles the female parent.
3. If the union takes place frequently, and sufficient time is not allowed to intervene, the female soon becomes barren. For which reason those who attend to this business do not permit them to have continual intercourse, but interpose a proper interval. The mare will not admit the he ass, nor the she ass the horse, unless the he ass has been suckled by a mare. They are careful, therefore, to admit only those asses which they call hippothelæ, _i.e._ asses which have been suckled by a mare. These copulate by force in the pastures, like horses.
CHAPTER XXIV.
1. The oreus (mule) mounts and copulates after shedding the first teeth, and when seven years old is able to engender; and the ginnus is produced when he mounts upon a mare. After this he no longer continues to copulate. The female oreus also has been impregnated, but the fœtus has never been known to come to maturity. The hemioni (female mules) of Syria, near Phœnicia, admit the male and procreate. The kind, however, though similar, is not the same. Those which are called ginni are produced from a mare, when the fœtus has received some injury in the uterus, like dwarfs among men and metachœra among swine; and the ginnus, like the dwarf, has a large genital organ.
2. The hemionus has a long life; for they have been known to live for eighty years, as in Athens, when they built the temple, this individual, though failing with age, helped in drawing, and went beside them, and encouraged the yoke mules to their work, so that an edict was made, commanding the corn-dealers not to drive it away from the vessels filled with corn. The female mule (oreus) grows old sooner than the male. Some persons say that she is purified when making water, but the male ages more rapidly from smelling the urine.
3. This is the manner of the reproduction of these animals. Those who are employed in bringing up these animals recognize the young from the old in this way. If the skin, when drawn back from the cheek, soon recovers its shape, the animal is young; if the skin continues wrinkled for a long while, the creature is aged.
CHAPTER XXV.
1. The camel is pregnant ten months, and always produces a single young one, for this is its nature. They separate the young camel from the herd at a year old. The camel will live more than fifty years.
The season of parturition is in the spring, and the female continues to give milk until she conceives again. Their flesh and milk are exceedingly sweet. The milk is drunk mixed with two or three times its quantity of water.
2. Elephants begin to copulate at twenty years old. When the female is impregnated, her period of gestation, some persons say, is a year and a half; other people make it three years. The difficulty of seeing their copulation causes this difference of opinion respecting the period of gestation. The female produces her young bending upon her haunches. Her pain is evident. The calf, when it is born, sucks with its mouth, and not with its proboscis. It can walk and see as soon as it is born.
3. Wild swine copulate at the beginning of winter. They produce their young in the spring. For this purpose the female gets away into inaccessible and precipitous places, where there are caves and plenty of shade. The males remain with the females for thirty days. The number of pigs and the period of gestation are the same as in the domesticated herd, and their voices are much alike: the female, however, grunts more and the male less. The castration of the male makes them larger and more fierce, as Homer writes. "He brought up a castrated wild boar, which was not like a beast fed upon food, but resembled a woody mountain peak." Castration takes place from a disease like a swelling in the testicles, which they rub against the trees and so destroy them.
CHAPTER XXVI.
1. The female deer usually copulates, as I observed before, from allurement; for she cannot endure the male on account of the hardness of the penis. Some, however, endure copulation as sheep do. When sexual desire is felt, they lie down beside each other. The male is changeable in his disposition, and does not unite himself to a single female, but in a short time leaves one for another. The season for sexual intercourse is in August and September, after Arcturus. The period of gestation is eight months. The female becomes pregnant in a few days, and frequently in one day.
2. She generally produces one fawn, though some have been known to bear twins. She produces her young by the road side, for fear of wild beasts. The growth of the fawns is rapid. The female has no purification at other times, but after parturition her cleansing is sanguineous. The female usually conducts her fawn to some accustomed place, which serves them for a refuge. It is usually an opening in a rock, with but one entrance, where they can defend themselves against those who would attack them.
3. There are fables about their long life. They do not, however, appear to be worthy of credit; and the period of gestation and growth of the young does not agree with the habits of long-lived animals. In the mountain called Elaphoïs, in Arginusa, in Asia, where Alcibiades died, all the deer have their ears divided, so that they can be known if they migrate to another place, and even the fœtus in utero has this distinction. The females have four nipples, like cows.
4. As soon as the females are impregnated, the males go and live apart from them, and, urged by their sexual desires, they each go apart and make a hole, in which they emit a strong smell like he goats, and their faces become black, by being sprinkled like those of goats. This continues till after rain, when they turn again to their pasture. The animal acts in this way on account of its violent sexual desires and its fatness. In summer time this is so great that they cannot run, but are taken by those who pursue them, even on foot, in the second or third race.
5. They frequent the water both on account of the heat and the difficulty of breathing. At the period of sexual intercourse, their flesh is inferior both in taste and smell, like that of he-goats. In winter they are thin and weak, and in the spring are most active for the chase. When chased, they sometimes rest awhile, and remain standing till their pursuers come up with them, when they start afresh. They seem to do this from a pain in their intestines; for their viscera are so thin and weak that if they are only struck gently they are ruptured, though the hide remains sound.
CHAPTER XXVII.
1. Bears perform the act of sexual intercourse in the manner already described, not mounting upon each other, but lying down upon the ground. The female is pregnant thirty days, when she produces one or two, or at the outside five cubs. The fœtus is smaller, in proportion to the size of the parent, than that of any other animal; for it is less than a weasel, and greater than a mouse. It is without hair and blind, and its legs and almost all its parts are without joints. Its season of sexual intercourse is in March. The cubs are born at the time of concealment. At this season both the female and the male are very fat. When they have brought up their young, they show themselves in the third month of the spring. The porcupine also conceals itself, and is pregnant for the same number of days, and in other respects resembles the bear. It is very difficult to capture the she bear when pregnant.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1. It has already been observed that the lion both copulates and makes water backwards. They do not copulate and produce their young at all seasons of the year, though they produce annually. The young are produced in the spring. The female generally produces two, never more than six, and sometimes only one. The fable which says that the uterus is ejected in parturition is a mistake. It has arisen from the rarity of the animal, those who invented the fable being ignorant of the true state of the case. The race of lions is rare, and not to be found in every place, but only in the country between the Achelous and the Nessus in the whole of Europe. The young of the lion are very small at their birth, so that they can hardly walk at two months old. The Syrian lions produce five times; at first five cubs, and then one less every time. After this they produce no more, but continue barren. The lioness has no mane, though the lion has. The lion only sheds its four canine teeth, two above and two below. They are shed when the animal is six months old.
2. The hyæna is of the colour of the wolf, but it is more hairy, and has a mane along the ridge of its back. It is a mistake to say that each individual has the sexual organs of both sexes. That of the male resembles the same organ in the wolf and the dog. That which has been imagined to be the female organ is placed beneath the tail, and it resembles that of the female, but is imperforate, and the anus is beneath it. The female hyena has an organ similar to that which bears its name in the male. It is placed beneath the tail, and is imperforate. Beneath this is the anus, and below this again the true genital organ. The female hyena has an uterus like that of other animals of the class, but the female is rarely captured. A certain hunter said that he caught eleven hyænas of which only one was a female.
3. Hares copulate backwards, as I formerly observed, for it is a retromingent animal. They copulate and produce their young at all seasons. They become pregnant a second time while they are pregnant, and produce their young every month. They do not produce their young continually, but as many days as may be intervene. The female has milk before the young are produced. As soon as her young are born, she copulates again and conceives while giving milk. The milk is as thick as that of the sow. The young are born blind, like those of many animals with divided feet.
CHAPTER XXIX.
1. The fox copulates, mounting on the back of the female. The young are born blind, like those of the bear, and are even more inarticulate.
When the season of parturition approaches, the female goes apart, so that it is rare to take a pregnant fox. When the young are born, the dam licks them, in order to warm and mature them. She never produces more than four.
2. The periods of gestation and parturition, both in point of time and the number of the young, are the same in the wolf as in the dog, and the young are blind, like those of the dog. They copulate at one season of the year, and the young are produced in the beginning of summer.
A fabulous story is told of their parturition; for they say that all the she wolves produce their young in twelve days in the year; and the reason which is given for this fable is this, that during this number of days Latona was brought from the Hyperborean regions to Delos, in the form of a wolf, for fear of Juno. Whether this is or is not the period of parturition has never yet been ascertained. At present it only rests upon tradition. It does not appear to be true, nor that other tale which says that wolves only produce once in their life.
3. Cats and ichneumons produce their young in the same manner as dogs, and live upon the same things. They live about six years. The young of the panther are born blind. They are never more than four in number.
The jackal is impregnated like a bitch, and the young are born blind.
They produce two, or three, or four. Its length towards the tail is great. Its height is small. It runs very swiftly, although its legs are short; but on account of the softness of its tissues it can leap a great distance.
4. In Syria there are animals called hemioni which are different from those derived from a mixture of the horse and ass, though they resemble them in appearance. As the wild ass is named from its resemblance to the domestic kind, the wild asses and the hemioni differ from the domestic race in speed. These hemioni are derived from their own congeners, of which this is a proof. For some came to Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces, the father of Pharnabazus, and remain there still.
There are now only three, though they say that at first there were nine.
CHAPTER XXX.
1. The reproduction of mice is more wonderful than that of any other animal, both in number and rapidity. For a pregnant female was left in a vessel of corn; and after a short time the vessel was opened, and a hundred and twenty mice were counted. There is a doubt respecting the reproduction and destruction of the mice which live on the ground; for such an inexpressible number of field mice have sometimes made their appearance that very little food remained. Their power of destruction also is so great that some small farmers, having on one day observed that their corn was ready for harvest, when they went the following day to cut their corn, found it all eaten.
2. The manner of their disappearance also is unaccountable; for in a few days they all vanish, although beforehand they could not be exterminated by smoking and digging them out, nor by hunting them and turning swine among them to root up their runs. Foxes also hunt them out, and wild weasels[213] are very ready to destroy them; but they cannot prevail over their numbers and the rapidity of their increase, nor indeed can anything prevail over them but rain, and when this comes they disappear very soon.
[213] Perhaps ferret, Mustela varo, or weasel.
3. In a certain part of Persia the female fœtus of the mice are found to be pregnant in the uterus of their parent. Some people say and affirm that if they lick salt they become pregnant without copulation.
The Egyptian mice have hair nearly resembling that of the hedgehog.
There are other kinds which go upon two feet, for their fore feet are small and their hind feet large.[214] They are very numerous. There are also many other kinds of mice.
[214] Serboa, Dipus gerbillus, or D. jaculus.
BOOK THE SEVENTH.
CHAPTER I.
1. The circumstances attending on the growth of man, from his conception in the womb even to old age, derived from his peculiar nature, are after this manner. We have already treated of the distinctions of the male and female and their parts. The male begins to have semen at about the age of fourteen complete. At the same time hair begins to appear on the pubes. As Alcmæon of Crotona says that flowers blossom before they bear seed, about the same period the voice begins to become more harsh and irregular. It is neither quite harsh, nor deep, nor all alike, but it resembles a discordant and harsh instrument. This is called τραγίζειν, to have a voice like a goat.
2. This is more conspicuous in those who attempt the gratification of sexual desires; for those who are vehement in these desires rapidly pass into a man's voice. In those that refrain themselves the contrary occurs. In those who, like some singers, endeavour to avoid this change, the voice will continue for a long while, and never undergo any great change. The breasts also and pudendum not only increase in size, but their general appearance is changed. At this period of life, if a person is urged to the emission of semen, the discharge is accompanied with pain as well as pleasure.
3. About the same period also the breasts of females enlarge, and the catamenia make their appearance. They resemble the blood of a newly killed animal. In young girls only do they appear white, especially if they make use of fluid food. This complaint stops the growth and weakens the body of girls. The catamenia usually appear when the mammæ are about two fingers high. The voice of girls also becomes deeper at this period, for on the whole the voice of women is more acute than that of men, and the voice of girls than that of old women, as the voice of boys is more acute than the voice of men. The voice of female children also is more acute than that of males, and the windpipe is more acute in girls than boys.
4. They also want especial care at this period, for their sexual desires are very strong at the commencement, so that if they now take care to avoid every excitement, except such as the change of their body requires, without using venery, they generally remain temperate in after-years. For girls who indulge in venery when young, generally grow up intemperate; and so do males if they are unguarded either one way or both ways; for at this age the ducts open and afford an easy passage for the fluid through the body, and at the same time the memory of past pleasures causes a desire for present gratification.
5. Some men never have hair on the pubes from their birth, nor seed, on account of the destruction of the parts appropriated to the semen.
There are some women also who never have hair on the pubes. The male and female also change their habits of sickness and of health, and the proportions of their body, whether slight or stout, or of a good habit.
Some thin boys after they attain puberty become stout and healthy, in others the contrary takes place. This is the case also with females; for whether boys or girls have their bodies loaded with excrementitious matter, this is separated in the one by puberty, in the other by the catamenia. They become more healthy and thriving when that which had prevented health and growth is removed.
6. Those which are of the contrary habit of body become more thin and delicate; for their naturally healthy condition is separated in the puberty of one sex, and the catamenia of the other. There is also considerable variety in the bosoms of young girls, for in some they are very large, in others small. This generally takes place in those girls which have much superfluous humour, for when the catamenia are about to appear, but before they arrive, the more fluid the patient is, the more necessary it is that the breasts should increase until the catamenia make their appearance, and the breasts, which then begin to increase, remain so afterwards. In youths and aged men the breasts are more conspicuous, and more like those of females; and in those who are of a soft habit of body, and are smooth and not full of veins, and in dark persons also more than fair ones.
7. Until twenty-one years of age the semen is unproductive, afterwards it becomes fertile, though boys and girls produce small and imperfect children: this is also the case with other animals. Young girls conceive more readily, but after conception suffer more in parturition, and their bodies frequently become imperfect. Men of violent passions, and women that have borne many children, grow old more rapidly than others; nor does there appear to be any increase after they have borne three children. Women of violent sexual desires become more temperate after they have borne several children.
8. Women who have attained thrice seven years are well adapted for child-bearing, and men also are capable of becoming parents. Thin seminal fluid is barren. That which is lumpy begets males; what is thin and not clotted, females. The beard also appears on the chin of men at the same period.
CHAPTER II.
1. The catamenia appear when the moon is on the wane, from which some persons would argue that the moon is a female, for the purification of women and the waning of the moon occur together, and repletion occurs again in both after the purification and waning. In few women the catamenia occur every month, but in most at every third month. Those in whom they continue for only two or three days escape with ease: it is more difficult for those in whom it continues for a longer time, for they suffer during the whole period. In some the purification takes place all at once, in others by degrees; in all, however, the pain is considerable as long as they are present. In many women, when the catamenia are nearly ready to appear, the womb suffers so much from strangulation and disturbance, until they are discharged.
2. Conception naturally takes place immediately after this discharge in women, and those who do not then conceive, are usually barren. Some women, however, who have never menstruated, conceive. Such persons contain in themselves as much of the fluid as is usually left behind after the purification, but not so much as to make its appearance externally. Some women in whom the uterus has closed immediately after the purification, conceive even while menstruating, but do not conceive afterwards. The catamenia sometimes occur even in pregnant women. Such women usually bear imperfect children, and their offspring either do not grow up, or are weakly.
3. It frequently happens that from the want of sexual intercourse, or from youth and the period of life, or from long abstinence, the uterus descends, and the catamenia occur several times in the month, until they conceive; after which the parts return to their proper place: and sometimes even in women with a good habit of body, if the humours are abundant, an effusion of the semen takes place if it is too moist.
4. It has already been observed that this purification is more abundant in women than in any other creature. In animals that are not viviparous no symptoms of anything of the kind occur, for this superfluous matter is returned into their own body, for in many the females are superior to the males in size, and in many it is turned to the formation of plates, or scales, or abundance of feathers. In viviparous animals with feet, it is turned to the formation of hair and bulk of body (for man is the only animal that is smooth), or of urine; for in almost all animals this secretion is thick and abundant. In women, on the contrary, all the superfluous matter of the body is directed to this purification.
5. The case of the male is the same, for in proportion to his size, man emits more semen than other animals; (wherefore, also, man is the smoothest of all animals,) and among men those which abound in humours, and are not very full fleshed, and fair men more than dark ones. So also among women. For in those that are full fleshed, the greater part of the secretion goes to the supply of the body, and in the act of sexual intercourse, fair women have naturally more seminal fluid than dark ones. Liquid and acid foods also increase this kind of intercourse.
CHAPTER III.
1. It is a sign that women have conceived when the pudendum remains dry after coition. If the labia are smooth they will not conceive, for it slips out; nor will they if the labia are thick: but if there is a sensation of roughness and resistance when touched with the finger, and the labia are thin, they are then adapted for conception. In order that they may be able to conceive, such women must prepare the uterus, and the contrary that they may not conceive; for if the labia are smooth they do not conceive: so that some women, in order that the semen may fall outside the uterus, anoint themselves with oil of cedar, or with ceruse, or oil mixed with frankincense.
2. If it remain seven days, it is evident that conception has taken place, for in this period what are called the outpourings take place.
The purification takes place in many women after conception. Thirty days afterwards in the case of conceiving a female child, and forty in the case of a male. After parturition, also, the purification lasts a similar number of days, though it is not exactly the same in all.
3. In the same number of days after conception the discharge no longer takes its usual course, but is turned towards the mammæ, in which the milk begins to make its appearance. At first the milk appears very small, and like a web in the mammæ. After conception, the first sensation generally takes place in the iliac region, which immediately appears more full in some persons. This is more conspicuous in slight persons. If the child is a male, a movement is usually felt on the right side of the groin, in about forty days; if a female, the movement occurs on the left side, in about ninety days. We must not suppose, however, that an accurate judgment can be formed in this way, for it often happens that the movement is felt on the right side when a female child, and on the left when a male child is conceived. All these, and such like things, vary in a greater or less degree.
4. About this period, also, the fœtus becomes divided; it previously existed as an undivided mass of flesh. If it perishes within seven days, it is called an effluxion; if in forty days, an abortion. The fœtus often perishes within this period. If the male fœtus is excluded within forty days, and is put out into any other fluid, it becomes dissolved, and disappears. If placed in cold water, it becomes, as it were, surrounded with a membrane. When this is taken off, the fœtus appears about as large as a large ant. Its parts are visible, both those of generation, and all the rest; and the eyes are very large, as in other animals. If the female fœtus perishes within the three months, it generally appears without divisions. If it survives to the fourth month, the parts appear formed.
5. The whole completion of the parts is more slow in the female than in the male, and parturition is more frequently delayed to the tenth month. After birth, females attain to youth, and puberty, and old age, more rapidly than males, and those that have borne many children more rapidly than others, as it was observed before.
CHAPTER IV.
1. When conception has taken place, the uterus usually closes immediately for seven months. In the eighth month it opens, and the fœtus, if properly developed, begins to descend in the eighth month. If the fœtus is not properly developed, but checked in the eighth month in parturition, women who bear in the eighth month do not exclude it, nor does the fœtus advance downwards in the eighth month, and the uterus does not open itself. It is a sign that it is not properly developed, when it is born before the circumstances I have described take place.
2. After conception, women suffer throughout their whole body, and their sight becomes dim, and they are afflicted with headache. In some, these symptoms occur very soon, as early as the tenth day; in others they are delayed, in proportion as they have an abundance or deficiency of superfluous matter in their bodies. Nausea and vomiting often seize upon them, and on those especially in whom the purifications become stagnant, and do not yet fly to the mammæ. Some women suffer at the commencement of pregnancy, and others in the more advanced stages, when the fœtus begins to grow. Retention of urine also frequently attacks them at last.
3. Those that are pregnant with a male fœtus, usually pass through the time more easily, and retain a better colour throughout. If a female is conceived, the contrary is the case; for they are generally more discoloured, and suffer more during the period of gestation.
In many cases the legs swell, and a swollen condition of the flesh is also common. In some women, however, the condition is contrary.
Pregnant women are apt to have all sorts of fancies, which change very rapidly. Some persons call this longing. These fancies are strongest when a female is conceived, and there is but little pleasure in their gratification. In a few women the condition of the body is better during pregnancy; they suffer most when the hair of the fœtus begins to grow. Pregnant women lose the hair which grows on the parts that are hairy at birth, while it becomes more thick upon the parts on which it appears subsequent to birth.
4. A male fœtus usually moves more freely in the womb than a female, and the parturition is not so long. If a female, the parturition is slower. The pain in the birth of female children is continuous, and dull; in the birth of males it is sharp, and far more severe. Those who, before parturition, have sexual intercourse, suffer less in the process. Sometimes women seem to suffer, not from any pain of their own, but from the turning of the head of the child; and this appears to be the commencement of the pain. Other animals have a single exact period for parturition, for one time is appointed for them all. The human subject alone varies in this particular, for the period of