5.  But let us return to the spectacle of creation.  The easiest animals to catch are the most productive.  It is on account of this that hares and wild goats produce many little ones, and that wild sheep have twins, for fear lest these species should disappear, consumed by carnivorous animals.  Beasts of prey, on the contrary, produce only a few and a lioness with difficulty gives birth to one lion; cf. Herod. iii. 108.  Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 31) refutes this. because, if they say truly, the cub issues from its mother by tearing her with its claws; and vipers are only born by gnawing through the womb, inflicting a proper punishment on their mother. cf. Pliny (x. 72):  “Tertia die intra uterum catulos excludit, deinde singulos singulis diebus parit, viginti fere numero.  Itaque ceteræ, tarditatis impatientes, perrumpunt latera, occisa parente.  cf. Herod. iii. 109. So Prudentius (Hamartigenia 583):  “Sic vipera, ut aiunt,  Dentibus emoritur fusæ per viscera prolis.” See Sir T. Browne’s Vulgur Errors, iii. 16.  Thus in nature all has been foreseen, all is the object of continual care.  If you examine the members even of animals, you will find that the Creator has given them nothing superfluous, that He has omitted nothing that is necessary.  To carnivorous animals He has given pointed teeth which their nature requires for their support.  Those that are only half furnished with teeth have received several distinct receptacles for their food.  As it is not broken up enough in the first, they are gifted with the power of returning it after it has been swallowed, and it does not assimilate until it has been crushed by rumination.  The first, second, third, and fourth stomachs of ruminating animals do not remain idle; each one of them fulfils a necessary function. Pliny (xi. 78) says ruminantibus geminus, but this is supposed to be a misreading for quadrigeminus, or a mistaken interpretation of Aristotle (H.A. ii. 19), whom Basil is no doubt following.  The neck of the camel is long so that it may lower it to its feet and reach the grass on which it feeds.  Bears, lions, tigers, all animals of this sort, have short necks buried in their shoulders; it is because they do not live upon grass and have no need to bend down to the earth; they are carnivorous and eat the animals upon whom they prey.