Seite - 1446 - in The Complete Aristotle

It is plain from the facts that with the birds that lay many eggs the nutriment is diverted to the semen. For most trees, if they bear too much fruit, wither away after the crop when nutriment is not reserved for themselves, and this seems to be what happens to annuals, as leguminous plants, corn, and the like. For they consume all their nutriment to make seed, their kind being prolific. And some fowls after laying too much, so as even to lay two eggs in a day, have died after this. For both the birds the plants become exhausted, and this condition is an excess of secretion of residual matter. A similar condition is the cause of the later sterility of the lioness, for at the first birth she produces five or six, then in the next year four, and again three cubs, then the next number down to one, then none at all, showing that the residue is being used up and the generative secretion is failing along with the advance of years. We have now stated in which birds wind-eggs are found, and also what sort of birds lay many eggs or few, and for what reasons. And wind-eggs, as said before, come into being because while it is the material for generation that exists in the female of all animals, birds have no discharge of catamenia like viviparous sanguinea (for they occur in all these latter, more in some, less in others, and in some only enough in quantity just to mark the class). The same applies to fish as to birds, and so in them as in birds is found an embryonic formation without impregnation, but it is less obvious because their nature is colder. The secretion corresponding to the catamenia of vivipara is formed in birds at the appropriate season for the discharge of superfluous matter, and, because the region near the hypozoma is hot, it is perfected so far as size is concerned, but in birds and fishes alike it is imperfect for generation without the seminal fluid of the male; the cause of this has been previously given. Wind-eggs are not formed in the flying birds, for the same reason as prevents their laying many eggs; for the residual matter in birds of prey is small, and they need the male to give an impulse for the discharge of it. The wind-eggs are produced in greater numbers than the impregnated but smaller in size for one and the same reason; they are smaller in size because they are imperfect, and because they are smaller in size they are more in number. They are less pleasant for food because they are less concocted, for in all foods the concocted is more agreeable. It has been sufficiently observed, then, that neither birds’ nor fishes’ eggs are perfected for generation without the males. As for embryos being formed in fish also (though in a less degree) without the males, the fact has been observed especially in river fish, for some are seen to have eggs from the first, as has been written in the Enquiries concerning them. And generally speaking in the case of birds even the impregnated eggs are not wont for the most part to attain their full growth unless the hen be trodden continually. The reason of this is that just as with women intercourse 1446