Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/411

 The shortness and straight course of the spermatic vessels in the cock also assist the rapid emission of the spermatic fluid : anything that must pass through lengthened and tor- tuous conduits of course escapes more slowly and requires a greater exercise of the impelling power or spirit to force it away.

Among male animals there is none that is more active or more haughty and erect, or that has stronger powers of di- gestion than the cock, which turns the larger portion of his food into semen ; hence it is that he requires so many wives, ten or even a dozen. For there are some animals, single males of which suffice for several females, as we see among deer, cattle, &c. ; and there are others, of which the females are so prurient that they are scarcely satisfied with several males, such as the bitch and the wolf; whence prostitutes were called lupa or wolves, as making their persons common ; and stews were entitled lupanaria. Whilst some animals, of a more chaste disposition, live, as it were, in the conjugal estate, so that the male is married to a single female only, and both take part in providing for the wants of the family ; for since nature requires that the male supply the deficiencies of the female in the work of generation, and as she alone in many cases does not suffice to cherish and feed and protect the young, the male is added to the wife that he may take part in the burthen of bringing up the offspring. Partridges lead a wedded life, be- cause the females alone cannot incubate such a number of eggs as they lay, (so that they are said, by some, to make two nests,) nor to bring up such a family as by and by appears without assistance. The male pigeon also assists in building the nest, takes his turn in incubating the eggs, and is active in feeding the young. In the same way many other instances of conjugal life among the loAver animals might be quoted, and indeed we shall have occasion to refer to several in what yet remains to be said.

Those males, among animals, which serve several females, such as the cock, have an abundant secretion of seminal fluid, and are provided with long and ample vasa deferentia. And at whatever time or season the clustered rudimentary papulae in the ovary come to maturity and require fecundation, that they may go on to be turned into perfect eggs, the males will then be found to have an abundance of seminal fluid, and the testicles