Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/285

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ON GENERATION.
185

served, however, repeatedly, that the hen turned the common orifice to the right or left indifferently, according to the side from which the cock approached her. Neither do I find any penis in the cock neither, indeed, could Fabricius, although in the goose and duck it is very conspicuous. But in its stead I discover an orifice in the cock, not otherwise than in the hen, although it is smaller and more contracted in her than in him ; and in the swan, goose, and duck the same thing also appears, the penis of the male goose and duck protruding through this orifice during intercourse.

In a black drake I noticed the penis of such a length that after intercourse it trailed on the ground, and a fowl following, pecked at it greedily, thinking it an earth-worm, as I imagine, so that it was retracted more quickly than usual.

In the male ostrich I have found within this pudendal orifice a very large glans, and the red body of the penis, as we discover them within the prepuce of the horse, resembling a deer's or a small neat's tongue in form and magnitude ; and I have fre- quently observed this organ, rigid and somewhat hooked during the coitus, and when entered into the vulva of the female, held for some considerable time there without any movement : it was precisely as if the two creatures had been fastened together with a nail. Meantime, by the gesticulations of their heads and necks, and by their noises, they seemed to notify their nuptials, and to express the great degree of pleasure they experienced.

I have read in a treatise of Dr. Du Val, a learned physician of Rouen, that a certain hermaphrodite was referred to the sur- geons and accoucheurs, that they might determine whether it were a man or a woman. They, from an examination of the genital organs, adjudged the party to be of the feminine gender, and a dress in accordance with this decision was ordered. By and by, however, the individual was accused of soliciting women, and of discharging the man's office ; and then it was found, that from a prepuce, as from the private parts of a woman, a penis protruded, and served to perform the male's business. I have myself occasionally seen the penis of a certain man so greatly shrunk in size, that, unless when excited, nothing was visible in the wrinkled prepuce above the scrotum but the ex- tremity of the glans.