For the discharge of the catamenia is in females a
sort of emission of semen, they being unconcocted semen as has been
said before. Hence it is that those women also who are incontinent
in regard to such intercourse cease from their passion for it when
they have borne many children, for, the seminal secretion being then
drained off, they no longer desire this intercourse. And among birds
the hens are less disposed that way than the cocks, because the uterus
of the hen-bird is up near the hypozoma; but with the cock-birds it is
the other way, for their testes are drawn up within them, so that,
if any kind of such birds has much semen naturally, it is always in
need of this intercourse. In females then it encourages copulation
to have the uterus low down, but in males to have the testes drawn up.
It has been now stated why superfoetation is not found in some
animals at all, why it is found in others which sometimes bring the
later embryos to birth and sometimes not, and why some such animals
are inclined to sexual intercourse while others are not.
Some of those animals in which superfoetation occurs can bring the
embryos to birth even if a long time elapses between the two
impregnations, if their kind is spermatic, if their body is not of a
large size, and if they bear many young. For because they bear many
their uterus is spacious, because they are spermatic the generative
discharge is copious, and because the body is not large but the
discharge is excessive and in greater measure than is required for the
nourishment wanted for the embryo, therefore they can not only form
animals but also bring them to birth later on.
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