Aristotle, Second Part of THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

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II: 128 pages - You are on Page 83

Part 34

The fox mounts the vixen in copulation, and the vixen bears young like the she-bear; in fact, her young ones are even more inarticulately formed. Before parturition she retires to sequestered places, so that it is a great rarity for a vixen to be caught while pregnant. After parturition she warms her young and gets them into shape by licking them. She bears four at most at a birth.

Part 35

The wolf resembles the dog in regard to the time of conception and parturition, the number of the litter, and the blindness of the newborn young. The sexes couple at one special period, and the female brings forth at the beginning of the summer. There is an account given of the parturition of the she-wolf that borders on the fabulous, to the effect that she confines her lying-in to within twelve particular days of the year. And they give the reason for this in the form of a myth, viz. that when they transported Leto in so many days from the land of the Hyperboreans to the island of Delos, she assumed the form of a she-wolf to escape the anger of Here. Whether the account be correct or not has not yet been verified; I give it merely as it is currently told. There is no more of truth in the current statement that the she-wolf bears once and only once in her lifetime.

The cat and the ichneumon bear as many young as the dog, and live on the same food; they live about six years. The cubs of the panther are born blind like those of the wolf, and the female bears four at the most at one birth. The particulars of conception are the same for the thos, or civet, as for the dog; the cubs of the animal are born blind, and the female bears two, or three, or four at a birth. It is long in the body and low in stature; but not withstanding the shortness of its legs it is exceptionally fleet of foot, owing to the suppleness of its frame and its capacity for leaping.

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