Besides, birds build nests before they lay their eggs; and women provide cradles, swaddling cloths and the like; yet who says that the nest is before the egg, or the swaddling cloths before the infant.

For the earth (as Plato says doth not imitate a woman, but a woman, and so likewise all other females, the earth.) Moreover, it is probable that the first production out of the earth, which was then vigorous and perfect, was self-sufficient and entire, nor stood in need of those secundines, membranes, and vessels, which now Nature forms to help the weakness and supply the defects of breeders.
QUESTION IV.

WHETHER OR NO WRESTLING IS THE OLDEST EXERCISE.
SOSICLES, LYSIMACHUS, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.
Sosicles of Coronea having at the Pythian games won the prize from all the poets, gave us an entertainment.

And the time for running, cuffing, wrestling, and the like drawing on, there was a great talk of the wrestlers; for there were many and very famous men, who came to try their skill.

Lysimachus, one of the company, a procurator of the Amphictyons, said he heard a grammarian lately affirm that wrestling was the most ancient exercise of all, as even the very name witnessed; for some modern things have the names of more ancient transferred to them; thus to tune a pipe is called fitting it, and playing on it is called striking; both these names being transferred to it from the harp.