Moreover, more semen must needs be used in generation by the larger
animal, and little by the smaller. Therefore many small ones may be
produced together, but it is hard for many large ones to be so, and to
those intermediate in size Nature has assigned the intermediate
number. We have formerly given the reason why some animals are
large, some smaller, and some between the two, and speaking generally,
with regard to the number of young produced, the solid-hoofed
produce one, the cloven-footed few, the many-toed many. (The reason
of this is that, generally speaking, their sizes correspond to this
difference.) It is not so, however, in all cases; for it is the
largeness and smallness of the body that is cause of few or many young
being born, not the fact that the kind of animal has one, two, or many
toes. A proof of this is that the elephant is the largest of animals
and yet is many-toed, and the camel, the next largest, is
cloven-footed. And not only in animals that walk but also in those
that fly or swim the large ones produce few, the small many, for the
same reason. In like manner also it is not the largest plants that
bear most fruit.
We have explained then why some animals naturally produce many
young, some but few, and some only one; in the difficulty now stated
we may rather be surprised with reason at those which produce many,
since such animals are often seen to conceive from a single
copulation.
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