Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/412

 to enlarge and become conspicuous in the very situation to which they transfer their fecundating influence, viz. the prse- cordia. This is remarkable in fishes, birds, and the whole race of oviparous animals ; the males of which teem with fecundating seminal fluid at the same precise seasons as the females become full of eggs.

Whatever parts of the hen, therefore, are destined by nature for purposes of generation, viz. the ovary, the infundibulum, the processus uteri, the uterus itself, and the pudenda; as also the situation of these parts, their structure, dimensions, tem- perature, and all that follows this ; all these, I say, are either subordinate to the production and growth of the egg, or to in- tercourse and the reception of fecundity from the male ; or, for the sake of parturition, to which they conduce either as prin- cipal and convenient means, or as means necessary, and with- out which what is done could not be accomplished ; for nothing in nature's works is fashioned either carelessly or in vain. In the same way all the parts in the cock are fashioned subordinate to the preparation or concoction of the spermatic fluid, and its transference to the hen.

Now those males that are so vigorously constituted as to serve several females are larger and handsomer, and in the matter of spirit and arms excel their females in a far greater degree than the males of those that live attached to a single female. Neither the male partridge, nor the crow, nor the pigeon, is distinguished from the female bird in the same de- cided way as the cock from his hens, the stag from his does, &c.

The cock, therefore, as he is gayer in his plumage, better armed, more courageous and pugnacious, so is he replete with semen, and so apt for repeated intercourse, that unless he have a number of wives he distresses them by his frequent assaults ; he not only invites but compels them to his pleasure, and leaping upon them at inconvenient and improper seasons, (even when they are engaged in the business of incubation) and wearing off the feathers from their backs, he truly does them an injury. I have occasionally seen hens so torn and worn by the ferocious addresses of the cock, that with their backs stript of feathers and laid bare in places, even to the bone, they languished miserably for a time and then died. The same thing also occurs among pheasants, turkeys, and other species.