. That fat animals are bad breeders was well known to the ancients; Aristotle insists upon it several times. is, as Dr. Hunt observes, an epithet of the willow in Homer, but the explanations he quotes from Hesychius do not look very satisfactory; the willow was thought to ‘lose its fruit’ because it was supposed never to produce seed at all. Hence means ‘barren willows,’ and so Cercidas means ‘barren fat,’ i.e., fat which prevents a man from breeding.