Page - 1231 - in The Complete Aristotle

never grows bald. In the case of all castrated or mutilated male quadrupeds the voice changes to the feminine voice. All other quadrupeds when castrated, unless the operation be performed when they are young, invariably die; but in the case of boars, and in their case only, the age at which the operation is performed produces no difference. All animals, if operated on when they are young, become bigger and better looking than their unmutilated fellows; if they be mutilated when full-grown, they do not take on any increase of size. If stags be mutilated, when, by reason of their age, they have as yet no horns, they never grow horns at all; if they be mutilated when they have horns, the horns remain unchanged in size, and the animal does not lose them. Calves are mutilated when a year old; otherwise, they turn out uglier and smaller. Steers are mutilated in the following way: they turn the animal over on its back, cut a little off the scrotum at the lower end, and squeeze out the testicles, then push back the roots of them as far as they can, and stop up the incision with hair to give an outlet to suppurating matter; if inflammation ensues, they cauterize the scrotum and put on a plaster. If a full-grown bull be mutilated, he can still to all appearance unite sexually with the cow. The ovaries of sows are excised with the view of quenching in them sexual appetites and of stimulating growth in size and fatness. The sow has first to be kept two days without food, and, after being hung up by the hind legs, it is operated on; they cut the lower belly, about the place where the boars have their testicles, for it is there that the ovary grows, adhering to the two divisions (or horns) of the womb; they cut off a little piece and stitch up the incision. Female camels are mutilated when they are wanted for war purposes, and are mutilated to prevent their being got with young. Some of the inhabitants of Upper Asia have as many as three thousand camels: when they run, they run, in consequence of the length of their stride, much quicker than the horses of Nisaea. As a general rule, mutilated animals grow to a greater length than the unmutilated. All animals that ruminate derive profit and pleasure from the process of rumination, as they do from the process of eating. It is the animals that lack the upper teeth that ruminate, such as kine, sheep, and goats. In the case of wild animals no observation has been possible; save in the case of animals that are occasionally domesticated, such as the stag, and it, we know, chews the cud. All animals that ruminate generally do so when lying down on the ground. They carry on the process to the greatest extent in winter, and stall- fed ruminants carry it on for about seven months in the year; beasts that go in herds, as they get their food out of doors, ruminate to a lesser degree and over a lesser period. Some, also, of the animals that have teeth in both jaws ruminate; as, for instance, the Pontic mice, and the fish which from the habit is by some called ‘the Ruminant’, (as well as other fish). 1231