Seite - 1392 - in The Complete Aristotle

another and enfolding their arms. This attitude is necessary, because Nature has bent backwards the end of the intestine and brought it round near the mouth, as has been said before in the treatise on the parts of animals. The female has a part corresponding to the uterus, plainly to be seen in each of these animals, for it contains an egg which is at first indivisible to the eye but afterwards splits up into many; each of these eggs is imperfect when deposited, as with the oviparous fishes. In the cephalopoda (as also in the crustacea) the same passage serves to void the excrement and leads to the part like a uterus, for the male discharges the seminal fluid through this passage. And it is on the lower surface of the body, where the mantle is open and the sea-water enters the cavity. Hence the union of the male with the female takes place at this point, for it is necessary, if the male discharges either semen or a part of himself or any other force, that he should unite with her at the uterine passage. But the insertion, in the case of the poulps, of the arm of the male into the funnel of the female, by which arm the fishermen say the male copulates with her, is only for the sake of attachment, and it is not an organ useful for generation, for it is outside the passage in the male and indeed outside the body of the male altogether. Sometimes also cephalopoda unite by the male mounting on the back of the female, but whether for generation or some other cause has not yet been observed. < div id=“section16” class=“section” title=“16”> 16 Some insects copulate and the offspring are produced from animals of the same name, just as with the sanguinea; such are the locusts, cicadae, spiders, wasps, and ants. Others unite indeed and generate; but the result is not a creature of the same kind, but only a scolex, and these insects do not come into being from animals but from putrefying matter, liquid or solid; such are fleas, flies, and cantharides. Others again are neither produced from animals nor unite with each other; such are gnats, ‘conopes’, and many similar kinds. In most of those which unite the female is larger than the male. The males do not appear to have spermatic passages. In most cases the male does not insert any part into the female, but the female from below upwards into the male; this has been observed in many cases (as also that the male mounts the female), the opposite in few cases; but observations are not yet comprehensive enough to enable us to make a distinction of classes. And generally it is the rule with most of the oviparous fish and oviparous 1392