About the Planting of Noah (11-15)

Thus then the plant which bears all things was rooted, and when it was rooted was made strong. But of the particular plants, and those of smaller growth, some were moveable, so as to have their places changed; and some were made so as, without any such change, to stand steadily in the same place.

Those then that are affected by motion, inducing change of place, which we call animals, are attached to the most important portions of the universe; the terrestrial animals to the earth, the animals which swim to the water, the winged animals to the air and those which can live in the flame to the fire (which last are said to be most evidently produced in Macedonia), and the stars are attached to the heaven. For those who have studied philosophy pronounce the stars also to be animals, being endowed with intellect and pervading the whole universe; some being planets, and moving by their own intrinsic nature; and others, that is the fixed stars, being borne along with the revolutions of the universe; so that they likewise appear to change their places.

But those which are regulated according to a nature devoid of all sensation, which are peculiarly called plants, have no participation in that motion which involves a change of place.

But the Creator made two different races on the earth and in the air. In the air, he made the winged animals capable of being perceived by the external senses, and other powers which can by no means be comprehended in any place

For, as in the case of woman and every animal of the female sex, fountains of milk spring up in them when they are about to bring forth, in order that they may supply the offspring that is born of them with necessary and suitable food; so in a similar manner God has assigned to the earth, which is the mother of all terrestrial animals, all the different species of plants, in order that the animals produced by the earth may have such food as is akin to them, and not alien from their natures.