or eggs, one of which, being impregnated by the man's seed engenders the
child. They are, however, different from those of the male in shape,
because they are smaller and flatter at each end, and not so round or
oval; the external superficies is also more unequal, and has the
appearance of a number of knobs or kernels mixed together.

There is a difference, also, in the substance, as they are much softer
and more pliable, and not nearly so compact. Their size and temperature
are also different for they are much colder and smaller than in men, and
their covering or enclosure is likewise quite different; for as men's
are wrapped in several covers, because they are very pendulous and would
be easily injured unless they were so protected by nature, so women's
stones, being internal and thus less subject to being hurt, are covered
by only one membrane, and are likewise half covered by the peritoneum.

The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either side,
which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins in
substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb, and do
not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or to any
other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to the womb as
the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way about; and though
the testicles are not close to them and do not touch them, yet they are
fastened to them by certain membranes which resemble the wing of a bat,
through which certain veins and arteries passing from the end of the
testicles may be said to have their passages going from the corners of
the womb to the testicles, and these ligaments in women are the
_cremasters_[3] in men, of which I shall speak more fully when I come to
describe the male parts of generation.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XV

_A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
Parts in Women._

The external parts, commonly called the _pudenda_, are designed to cover
the great orifice and to receive the man's penis or yard in the act of
sexual intercourse, and to give passage to the child and to the urine.
The use of the wings and knobs, like myrtle berries, is for the security
of the internal parts, closing the orifice and neck of the bladder and
by their swelling up, to cause titillation and pleasure in those parts,
and also to obstruct t