Page - 1076 - in The Complete Aristotle

< div id=“section84” class=“section” title=“17”> 17 Of crustaceans, the female crawfish after copulation conceives and retains its eggs for about three months, from about the middle of May to about the middle of August; they then lay the eggs into the folds underneath the belly, and their eggs grow like grubs. This same phenomenon is observable in molluscs also, and in such fishes as are oviparous; for in all these cases the egg continues to grow. The spawn of the crawfish is of a loose or granular consistency, and is divided into eight parts; for corresponding to each of the flaps on the side there is a gristly formation to which the spawn is attached, and the entire structure resembles a cluster of grapes; for each gristly formation is split into several parts. This is obvious enough if you draw the parts asunder; but at first sight the whole appears to be one and indivisible. And the largest are not those nearest to the outlet but those in the middle, and the farthest off are the smallest. The size of the small eggs is that of a small seed in a fig; and they are not quite close to the outlet, but placed middleways; for at both ends, tailwards and trunkwards, there are two intervals devoid of eggs; for it is thus that the flaps also grow. The side flaps, then, cannot close, but by placing the end flap on them the animal can close up all, and this end-flap serves them for a lid. And in the act of laying its eggs it seems to bring them towards the gristly formations by curving the flap of its tail, and then, squeezing the eggs towards the said gristly formations and maintaining a bent posture, it performs the act of laying. The gristly formations at these seasons increase in size and become receptive of the eggs; for the animal lays its eggs into these formations, just as the sepia lays its eggs among twigs and driftwood. It lays its eggs, then, in this manner, and after hatching them for about twenty days it rids itself of them all in one solid lump, as is quite plain from outside. And out of these eggs crawfish form in about fifteen days, and these crawfish are caught at times less then a finger’s breadth, or seven-tenths of an inch, in length. The animal, then, lays its eggs before the middle of September, and after the middle of that month throws off its eggs in a lump. With the humped carids or prawns the time for gestation is four months or thereabouts. Crawfish are found in rough and rocky places, lobsters in smooth places, and neither crawfish nor lobsters are found in muddy ones; and this accounts for the fact that lobsters are found in the Hellespont and on the coast of 1076