Chapter III.
There is a manifold method of generating fish, and a singular sense of piety towards their offspring. How great is their purity, by which they not only surpass other animals, but even human beings themselves.
There are countless uses and countless species of fish. Some lay eggs, which they call different names according to their size, and entrust them to be nurtured by the waters. Therefore, water gives life and creates, and still carries out the task of that first command as if it were a perpetual law, being a kind mother to animals. Others give birth to live offspring from their own bodies, like weasels, and little dogs, and huge sea creatures like dolphins and seals, and other similar animals. When they give birth, if by chance they sense any plots or threats around their young, they open their mouths, and with harmless teeth suspend their young, holding them inside their body and hiding them in their genital pouch. What human feeling can imitate this fish's compassion? Kisses satisfy us; for them, it is not enough to open their bellies and receive and revive their newborns, nourishing them with a kind of warmth and feeding their spirit, and allowing two to live in one body until they either find safety or protect their young by offering their own body as a shield from danger. Who seeing these things, though they may be able to possess them, would not yield to such devotion to the fish? Who would not marvel and be amazed, that nature preserves in fish what it does not preserve in humans? Many, driven by the suspicion and hatred of stepmothers, have killed their own children: others, as we read, have devoured their own offspring in hunger. A mother has become a grave for her human pledges; the womb of fish is like a wall, which preserves the unharmed pledges of internal organs.
Therefore, different species of fish have different uses: some lay eggs, others give birth to live and formed offspring. And those that lay eggs do not build nests like birds, do not endure the labor of long incubation, and do not care for themselves with difficulty. An egg falls, which is gently received by the water as a nurturing mother, and quickly gives birth to a living creature. As soon as it is touched by the parent, the egg comes to life and a fish emerges.
Then there is the pure and untainted succession! No one mixes with another, but each species mates with its own kind, thymallus with thymallus, lupus with lupus. Even Scorpaena preserves the chastity of its immaculate union with its own species. Therefore, it has the modesty of its own kind, but it does not have the poison of its own kind; for Scorpaena does not strike, but it restores. Therefore, the species of alien fish do not know the adulterous contagion, such as those which mate with donkeys and mares, which are committed with great concern by humans; or again, when a horse mates with a donkey, which are true adulteries of nature. For it is certainly a greater offense to commit an act against the harmony of nature than to harm an individual person. And you, a deceitful interpreter of bestial adultery, consider that animal more valuable which is illegitimate rather than that which is true? You confuse different species and mix various seeds, and often force unwilling creatures into forbidden unions, and you call this cleverness! Because you cannot do this with humans, that the mingling of different kinds could produce offspring, you destroy what is naturally born in a man, strip him of his manhood, deny him his gender by cutting off a part of his body, and make him a eunuch; so you fulfill with audacity what nature denies in humans.