it is not easy to state the facts about the uterus in female animals, for there are many points of difference. the vivipara are not alike in this part; women and all the vivipara with feet have the uterus low down by the pudendum, but the cartilaginous viviparous fish have it higher up near the hypozoma. in the ovipara, again, it is low in fish (as in women and the viviparous quadrupeds), high in birds and all oviparous quadrupeds. yet even these differences are on a principle. to begin with the ovipara, they differ in the manner of laying their eggs, for some produce them imperfect, as fishes whose eggs increase and are finally developed outside of them. the reason is that they produce many young, and this is their function as it is with plants. if then they perfected the egg in themselves they must needs be few in number, but as it is, they have so many that each uterus seems to be an egg, at any rate in the small fishes. for these are the most productive, just as with the other animals and plants whose nature is analogous to theirs, for the increase of size turns with them to seed.
but the eggs of birds and the quadrupedal ovipara are perfect when produced. in order that these may be preserved they must have a hard covering (for their envelope is soft so long as they are increasing in size), and the shell is made by heat squeezing out the moisture for the earthy material; consequently the place must be hot in which this is to happen. but the part about the hypozoma is hot, as is shown by that being the part which concocts the food. if then the eggs must be within the uterus, then the uterus must be near the hypozoma in those creatures which produce their eggs in a perfect form. similarly it must be low down in those which produce them imperfect, for it is profitable that it should be so. and it is more natural for the uterus to be low down than high up, when nature has no other business in hand to hinder it; for its end is low down, and where is the end, there is the function, and the uterus itself is naturally where the function is.
