Page - 1070 - in The Complete Aristotle

eleven years; in fact, the ram and the ewe are sexually capable pretty well all their lives long. He-goats, if they be fat, are more or less unserviceable for breeding; and this, by the way, is the reason why country folk say of a vine when it stops bearing that it is ‘running the goat’. However, if an over-fat he- goat be thinned down, he becomes sexually capable and generative. Rams single out the oldest ewes for copulation, and show no regard for the young ones. And, as has been stated, the issue of the younger ewes is poorer than that of the older ones. The boar is good for breeding purposes until he is three years of age; but after that age his issue deteriorates, for after that age his vigour is on the decline. The boar is most capable after a good feed, and with the first sow it mounts; if poorly fed or put to many females, the copulation is abbreviated, and the litter is comparatively poor. The first litter of the sow is the fewest in number; at the second litter she is at her prime. The animal, as it grows old, continues to breed, but the sexual desire abates. When they reach fifteen years, they become unproductive, and are getting old. If a sow be highly fed, it is all the more eager for sexual commerce, whether old or young; but, if it be over-fattened in pregnancy, it gives the less milk after parturition. With regard to the age of the parents, the litter is the best when they are in their prime; but with regard to the seasons of the year, the litter is the best that comes at the beginning of winter; and the summer litter the poorest, consisting as it usually does of animals small and thin and flaccid. The boar, if it be well fed, is sexually capable at all hours, night and day; but otherwise is peculiarly salacious early in the morning. As it grows old the sexual passion dies away, as we have already remarked. Very often a boar, when more or less impotent from age or debility, finding itself unable to accomplish the sexual commerce with due speed, and growing fatigued with the standing posture, will roll the sow over on the ground, and the pair will conclude the operation side by side of one another. The sow is sure of conception if it drops its lugs in rutting time; if the ears do not thus drop, it may have to rut a second time before impregnation takes place. Bitches do not submit to the male throughout their lives, but only until they reach a certain maturity of years. As a general rule, they are sexually receptive and conceptive until they are twelve years old; although, by the way, cases have been known where dogs and bitches have been respectively procreative and conceptive to the ages of eighteen and even of twenty years. But, as a rule, age diminishes the capability of generation and of conception with these animals as with all others. The female of the camel is opisthuretic, and submits to the male in the way above described; and the season for copulation in Arabia is about the month 1070