CHAP. 95.—THE PAPS: BIRDS THAT HAVE PAPS. REMARKABLE
FACT'S CONNECTED WITH THE DUGS OF ANIMALS.
Man is the only male among animals that has nipples, all
the rest having mere marks only in place of them. Among
female animals even, the only ones that have mammæ on the
breast are those which can nurture their young. No oviparous
animal has mammæ, and those only have milk that are vivi-
parous; the bat being the only winged animal that has it. As
for the stories that they tell, about the screech-owl ejecting milk
from its teats upon the lips of infants, I look upon it as utterly
fabulous: from ancient times the name "strix,"
1 I am aware,
has been employed in maledictions, but I do not think it is
well ascertained what bird is really meant by that name.
(40.) The female ass is troubled with pains in the teats
after it has foaled, and it is for that reason that at the end of
six months it weans its young; while the mare suckles its
young for nearly the whole year. The solid-hoofed animals
do not bear more than two young ones at a time: they all of
them have two paps, and nowhere but between the hind legs.
Animals with cloven feet and with horns, such as the cow, for
instance, have four paps, similarly situate, sheep and goats two.
Those which produce a more numerous progeny, and those
which have toes on the feet, have a greater number of paps distributed in a double row all along the belly, such as the
sow, for instance; the better sorts have twelve, the more
common ones two less: the same is the case also with the
female of the dog. Other animals, again, have four paps situate
in the middle of the belly, as the female panther; others, again,
two only, as the lioness. The female elephant has two only,
situate between the shoulders, and those not in the breast, but
without it, and hidden in the arm-pits: none of the animals
which have toes have the paps between the hind legs. The sow
presents the first teat to the first-born in each farrow, the first
teat being the one that is situate nearest to the throat. Each
pig, too, knows its own teat, according to the order in which
it was born, and draws its nourishment from that and no other:
if its own suckling, too, should happen to be withdrawn from
my one of them, the pap will immediately dry up, and shrink
back within the belly: if there should be only one pig left
of all the farrow, that pap alone which has been assigned for
its nutriment when born, will continue to hang down for the
purpose of giving suck. The she-bear has four mammæ, the
dolphin only two, at the bottom of the belly; they are not
easily visible, and have a somewhat oblique direction: this is
the only animal which gives suck while in motion. The balæna
and sea-calf also suckle their young by teats.