These
polypods
are small, and are shaped, as regards the form of their bodies, like the bolbidia.
Aristotle copy
In the case of men of strong sexual passions the congenital hairs shed the sooner, while the hairs of the after-growths are the quicker to come. When men are afflicted with varicose veins they are less inclined to take on baldness; and if they be bald when they become thus afflicted, they have a tendency to get their hair again.
If a hair be cut, it does not grow at the point of section; but it gets longer by growing upward from below. In fishes the scales grow harder and thicker with age, and when the amimal gets emaciated or is growing old the scales grow harder. In quadrupeds as they grow old the hair in some and the wool in others gets deeper but scantier in amount: and the hooves or claws get larger in size; and the same is the case with the beaks of birds. The claws also increase in size, as do also the nails.
12
With regard to winged animals, such as birds, no creature is liable to change of colour by reason of age, excepting the crane. The wings of this bird are ash-coloured at first, but as it grows old the wings get black. Again, owing to special climatic influences, as when unusual frost prevails, a change is sometimes observed to take place in birds whose plumage is of one uniform colour; thus, birds that have dusky or downright black plumage turn white or grey, as the raven, the sparrow, and the swallow; but no case has ever yet been known of a change of colour from white to black. (Further, most birds change the colour of their plumage at different seasons of the year, so much so that a man ignorant of their habits might be mistaken as to their identity. ) Some animals change the colour of their hair with a change in their drinking-water, for in some countries the same species of animal is found white in one district and black in another. And in regard to the commerce of the sexes, water in many places is of such peculiar quality that rams, if they have intercourse with the female after drinking it, beget black lambs, as is the case with the water of the Psychrus (so-called from its coldness), a river in the district of Assyritis in the Chalcidic Peninsula, on the coast of Thrace; and in Antandria there are two rivers of which one makes the lambs white and the other black. The river Scamander also has the reputation of making lambs yellow, and that is the reason, they say, why Homer designates it the 'Yellow River. ' Animals as a general rule have no hair on their internal surfaces, and, in regard to their extremities, they have hair on the upper, but not on the lower side.
The hare, or dasypod, is the only animal known to have hair inside its mouth and underneath its feet. Further, the so-called mousewhale instead of teeth has hairs in its mouth resembling pigs' bristles.
Hairs after being cut grow at the bottom but not at the top; if feathers be cut off, they grow neither at top nor bottom, but shed and fall out. Further, the bee's wing will not grow again after being plucked off, nor will the wing of any creature that has undivided wings. Neither will the sting grow again if the bee lose it, but the creature will die of the loss.
13
In all sanguineous animals membranes are found. And membrane resembles a thin close-textured skin, but its qualities are different, as it admits neither of cleavage nor of extension. Membrane envelops each one of the bones and each one of the viscera, both in the larger and the smaller animals; though in the smaller animals the membranes are indiscernible from their extreme tenuity and minuteness. The largest of all the membranes are the two that surround the brain, and of these two the one that lines the bony skull is stronger and thicker than the one that envelops the brain; next in order of magnitude comes the membrane that encloses the heart. If membrane be bared and cut asunder it will not grow together again, and the bone thus stripped of its membrane mortifies.
14
The omentum or caul, by the way, is membrane. All sanguineous animals are furnished with this organ; but in some animals the organ is supplied with fat, and in others it is devoid of it. The omentum has both its starting-point and its attachment, with ambidental vivipara, in the centre of the stomach, where the stomach has a kind of suture; in non-ambidental vivipara it has its starting-point and attachment in the chief of the ruminating stomachs.
15
The bladder also is of the nature of membrane, but of membrane peculiar in kind, for it is extensile. The organ is not common to all animals, but, while it is found in all the vivipara, the tortoise is the only oviparous animal that is furnished therewithal. The bladder, like ordinary membrane, if cut asunder will not grow together again, unless the section be just at the commencement of the urethra: except indeed in very rare cases, for instances of healing have been known to occur. After death, the organ passes no liquid excretion; but in life, in addition to the normal liquid excretion, it passes at times dry excretion also, which turns into stones in the case of sufferers from that malady. Indeed, instances have been known of concretions in the bladder so shaped as closely to resemble cockleshells.
Such are the properties, then, of vein, sinew and skin, of fibre and membrane, of hair, nail, claw and hoof, of horns, of teeth, of beak, of gristle, of bones, and of parts that are analogous to any of the parts here enumerated.
16
Flesh, and that which is by nature akin to it in sanguineous animals, is in all cases situated in between the skin and the bone, or the substance analogous to bone; for just as spine is a counterpart of bone, so is the flesh-like substance of animals that are constructed a spinous system the counterpart of the flesh of animals constructed on an osseous one.
Flesh can be divided asunder in any direction, not lengthwise only as is the case with sinew and vein. When animals are subjected to emaciation the flesh disappears, and the creatures become a mass of veins and fibres; when they are over fed, fat takes the place of flesh. Where the flesh is abundant in an animal, its veins are somewhat small and the blood abnormally red; the viscera also and the stomach are diminutive; whereas with animals whose veins are large the blood is somewhat black, the viscera and the stomach are large, and the flesh is somewhat scanty. And animals with small stomachs are disposed to take on flesh.
17
Again, fat and suet differ from one another. Suet is frangible in all directions and congeals if subjected to extreme cold, whereas fat can melt but cannot freeze or congeal; and soups made of the flesh of animals supplied with fat do not congeal or coagulate, as is found with horse-flesh and pork; but soups made from the flesh of animals supplied with suet do coagulate, as is seen with mutton and goat's flesh. Further, fat and suet differ as to their localities: for fat is found between the skin and flesh, but suet is found only at the limit of the fleshy parts. Also, in animals supplied with fat the omentum or caul is supplied with fat, and it is supplied with suet in animals supplied with suet. Moreover, ambidental animals are supplied with fat, and non-ambidentals with suet.
Of the viscera the liver in some animals becomes fatty, as, among fishes, is the case with the selachia, by the melting of whose livers an oil is manufactured. These cartilaginous fish themselves have no free fat at all in connexion with the flesh or with the stomach. The suet in fish is fatty, and does not solidify or congeal. All animals are furnished with fat, either intermingled with their flesh, or apart. Such as have no free or separate fat are less fat than others in stomach and omentum, as the eel; for it has only a scanty supply of suet about the omentum. Most animals take on fat in the belly, especially such animals as are little in motion.
The brains of animals supplied with fat are oily, as in the pig; of animals supplied with suet, parched and dry. But it is about the kidneys more than any other viscera that animals are inclined to take on fat; and the right kidney is always less supplied with fat than the left kidney, and, be the two kidneys ever so fat, there is always a space devoid of fat in between the two. Animals supplied with suet are specially apt to have it about the kidneys, and especially the sheep; for this animal is apt to die from its kidneys being entirely enveloped. Fat or suet about the kidney is superinduced by overfeeding, as is found at Leontini in Sicily; and consequently in this district they defer driving out sheep to pasture until the day is well on, with the view of limiting their food by curtailment of the hours of pasture.
18
The part around the pupil of the eye is fatty in all animals, and this part resembles suet in all animals that possess such a part and that are not furnished with hard eyes.
Fat animals, whether male or female, are more or less unfitted for breeding purposes. Animals are disposed to take on fat more when old than when young, and especially when they have attained their full breadth and their full length and are beginning to grow depthways.
19
And now to proceed to the consideration of the blood. In sanguineous animals blood is the most universal and the most indispensable part; and it is not an acquired or adventitious part, but it is a consubstantial part of all animals that are not corrupt or moribund. All blood is contained in a vascular system, to wit, the veins, and is found nowhere else, excepting in the heart. Blood is not sensitive to touch in any animal, any more than the excretions of the stomach; and the case is similar with the brain and the marrow. When flesh is lacerated, blood exudes, if the animal be alive and unless the flesh be gangrened. Blood in a healthy condition is naturally sweet to the taste, and red in colour, blood that deteriorates from natural decay or from disease more or less black. Blood at its best, before it undergoes deterioration from either natural decay or from disease, is neither very thick nor very thin. In the living animal it is always liquid and warm, but, on issuing from the body, it coagulates in all cases except in the case of the deer, the roe, and the like animals; for, as a general rule, blood coagulates unless the fibres be extracted. Bull's blood is the quickest to coagulate.
Animals that are internally and externally viviparous are more abundantly supplied with blood than the sanguineous ovipara. Animals that are in good condition, either from natural causes or from their health having been attended to, have the blood neither too abundant-as creatures just after drinking have the liquid inside them in abundance-nor again very scanty, as is the case with animals when exceedingly fat. For animals in this condition have pure blood, but very little of it, and the fatter an animal gets the less becomes its supply of blood; for whatsoever is fat is destitute of blood.
A fat substance is incorruptible, but blood and all things containing it corrupt rapidly, and this property characterizes especially all parts connected with the bones. Blood is finest and purest in man; and thickest and blackest in the bull and the ass, of all vivipara. In the lower and the higher parts of the body blood is thicker and blacker than in the central parts.
Blood beats or palpitates in the veins of all animals alike all over their bodies, and blood is the only liquid that permeates the entire frames of living animals, without exception and at all times, as long as life lasts. Blood is developed first of all in the heart of animals before the body is differentiated as a whole. If blood be removed or if it escape in any considerable quantity, animals fall into a faint or swoon; if it be removed or if it escape in an exceedingly large quantity they die. If the blood get exceedingly liquid, animals fall sick; for the blood then turns into something like ichor, or a liquid so thin that it at times has been known to exude through the pores like sweat. In some cases blood, when issuing from the veins, does not coagulate at all, or only here and there. Whilst animals are sleeping the blood is less abundantly supplied near the exterior surfaces, so that, if the sleeping creature be pricked with a pin, the blood does not issue as copiously as it would if the creature were awake. Blood is developed out of ichor by coction, and fat in like manner out of blood. If the blood get diseased, haemorrhoids may ensue in the nostril or at the anus, or the veins may become varicose. Blood, if it corrupt in the body, has a tendency to turn into pus, and pus may turn into a solid concretion.
Blood in the female differs from that in the male, for, supposing the male and female to be on a par as regards age and general health, the blood in the female is thicker and blacker than in the male; and with the female there is a comparative superabundance of it in the interior. Of all female animals the female in man is the most richly supplied with blood, and of all female animals the menstruous discharges are the most copious in woman. The blood of these discharges under disease turns into flux. Apart from the menstrual discharges, the female in the human species is less subject to diseases of the blood than the male.
Women are seldom afflicted with varicose veins, with haemorrhoids, or with bleeding at the nose, and, if any of these maladies supervene, the menses are imperfectly discharged.
Blood differs in quantity and appearance according to age; in very young animals it resembles ichor and is abundant, in the old it is thick and black and scarce, and in middle-aged animals its qualities are intermediate. In old animals the blood coagulates rapidly, even blood at the surface of the body; but this is not the case with young animals. Ichor is, in fact, nothing else but unconcocted blood: either blood that has not yet been concocted, or that has become fluid again.
20
We now proceed to discuss the properties of marrow; for this is one of the liquids found in certain sanguineous animals. All the natural liquids of the body are contained in vessels: as blood in veins, marrow in bones other moistures in membranous structures of the skin
In young animals the marrow is exceedingly sanguineous, but, as animals grow old, it becomes fatty in animals supplied with fat, and suet-like in animals with suet. All bones, however, are not supplied with marrow, but only the hollow ones, and not all of these. For of the bones in the lion some contain no marrow at all, and some are only scantily supplied therewith; and that accounts, as was previously observed, for the statement made by certain writers that the lion is marrowless. In the bones of pigs it is found in small quantities; and in the bones of certain animals of this species it is not found at all.
These liquids, then, are nearly always congenital in animals, but milk and sperm come at a later time. Of these latter, that which, whensoever it is present, is secreted in all cases ready-made, is the milk; sperm, on the other hand, is not secreted out in all cases, but in some only, as in the case of what are designated thori in fishes.
Whatever animals have milk, have it in their breasts. All animals have breasts that are internally and externally viviparous, as for instance all animals that have hair, as man and the horse; and the cetaceans, as the dolphin, the porpoise, and the whale-for these animals have breasts and are supplied with milk. Animals that are oviparous or only externally viviparous have neither breasts nor milk, as the fish and the bird.
All milk is composed of a watery serum called 'whey', and a consistent substance called curd (or cheese); and the thicker the milk, the more abundant the curd. The milk, then, of non-ambidentals coagulates, and that is why cheese is made of the milk of such animals under domestication; but the milk of ambidentals does not coagulate, nor their fat either, and the milk is thin and sweet. Now the camel's milk is the thinnest, and that of the human species next after it, and that of the ass next again, but cow's milk is the thickest. Milk does not coagulate under the influence of cold, but rather runs to whey; but under the influence of heat it coagulates and thickens. As a general rule milk only comes to animals in pregnancy. When the animal is pregnant milk is found, but for a while it is unfit for use, and then after an interval of usefulness it becomes unfit for use again. In the case of female animals not pregnant a small quantity of milk has been procured by the employment of special food, and cases have been actually known where women advanced in years on being submitted to the process of milking have produced milk, and in some cases have produced it in sufficient quantities to enable them to suckle an infant.
The people that live on and about Mount Oeta take such she-goats as decline the male and rub their udders hard with nettles to cause an irritation amounting to pain; hereupon they milk the animals, procuring at first a liquid resembling blood, then a liquid mixed with purulent matter, and eventually milk, as freely as from females submitting to the male.
As a general rule, milk is not found in the male of man or of any other animal, though from time to time it has been found in a male; for instance, once in Lemnos a he-goat was milked by its dugs (for it has, by the way, two dugs close to the penis), and was milked to such effect that cheese was made of the produce, and the same phenomenon was repeated in a male of its own begetting. Such occurrences, however, are regarded as supernatural and fraught with omen as to futurity, and in point of fact when the Lemnian owner of the animal inquired of the oracle, the god informed him that the portent foreshadowed the acquisition of a fortune. With some men, after puberty, milk can be produced by squeezing the breasts; cases have been known where on their being subjected to a prolonged milking process a considerable quantity of milk has been educed.
In milk there is a fatty element, which in clotted milk gets to resemble oil. Goat's milk is mixed with sheep's milk in Sicily, and wherever sheep's milk is abundant. The best milk for clotting is not only that where the cheese is most abundant, but that also where the cheese is driest.
Now some animals produce not only enough milk to rear their young, but a superfluous amount for general use, for cheese-making and for storage. This is especially the case with the sheep and the goat, and next in degree with the cow. Mare's milk, by the way, and milk of the she-ass are mixed in with Phrygian cheese. And there is more cheese in cow's milk than in goat's milk; for graziers tell us that from nine gallons of goat's milk they can get nineteen cheeses at an obol apiece, and from the same amount of cow's milk, thirty. Other animals give only enough of milk to rear their young withal, and no superfluous amount and none fitted for cheese-making, as is the case with all animals that have more than two breasts or dugs; for with none of such animals is milk produced in superabundance or used for the manufacture of cheese.
The juice of the fig and rennet are employed to curdle milk. The fig-juice is first squeezed out into wool; the wool is then washed and rinsed, and the rinsing put into a little milk, and if this be mixed with other milk it curdles Rennet is a kind of milk, for it is found in the stomach of the animal while it is yet suckling.
21
Rennet then consists of milk with an admixture of fire, which comes from the natural heat of the animal, as the milk is concocted. All ruminating animals produce rennet, and, of ambidentals, the hare. Rennet improves in quality the longer it is kept; and cow's rennet, after being kept a good while, and also hare's rennet, is good for diarrhoea, and the best of all rennet is that of the young deer.
In milk-producing animals the comparative amount of the yield varies with the size of the animal and the diversities of pasturage. For instance, there are in Phasis small cattle that in all cases give a copious supply of milk, and the large cows in Epirus yield each one daily some nine gallons of milk, and half of this from each pair of teats, and the milker has to stand erect, stooping forward a little, as otherwise, if he were seated, he would be unable to reach up to the teats. But, with the exception of the ass, all the quadrupeds in Epirus are of large size, and relatively, the cattle and the dogs are the largest. Now large animals require abundant pasture, and this country supplies just such pasturage, and also supplies diverse pasture grounds to suit the diverse seasons of the year. The cattle are particularly large, and likewise the sheep of the so-called Pyrrhic breed, the name being given in honour of King Pyrrhus.
Some pasture quenches milk, as Median grass or lucerne, and that especially in ruminants; other feeding renders it copious, as cytisus and vetch; only, by the way, cytisus in flower is not recommended, as it has burning properties, and vetch is not good for pregnant kine, as it causes increased difficulty in parturition. However, beasts that have access to good feeding, as they are benefited thereby in regard to pregnancy, so also being well nourished produce milk in plenty. Some of the leguminous plants bring milk in abundance, as for instance, a large feed of beans with the ewe, the common she-goat, the cow, and the small she-goat; for this feeding makes them drop their udders. And, by the way, the pointing of the udder to the ground before parturition is a sign of there being plenty of milk coming.
Milk remains for a long time in the female, if she be kept from the male and be properly fed, and, of quadrupeds, this is especially true of the ewe; for the ewe can be milked for eight months. As a general rule, ruminating animals give milk in abundance, and milk fitted for cheese manufacture. In the neighbourhood of Torone cows run dry for a few days before calving, and have milk all the rest of the time. In women, milk of a livid colour is better than white for nursing purposes; and swarthy women give healthier milk than fair ones. Milk that is richest in cheese is the most nutritious, but milk with a scanty supply of cheese is the more wholesome for children.
22
All sanguineous animals eject sperm. As to what, and how, it contributes to generation, these questions will be discussed in another treatise. Taking the size of his body into account, man emits more sperm than any other animal. In hairy-coated animals the sperm is sticky, but in other animals it is not so. It is white in all cases, and Herodotus is under a misapprehension when he states that the Aethiopians eject black sperm.
Sperm issues from the body white and consistent, if it be healthy, and after quitting the body becomes thin and black. In frosty weather it does not coagulate, but gets exceedingly thin and watery both in colour and consistency; but it coagulates and thickens under the influence of heat. If it be long in the womb before issuing out, it comes more than usually thick; and sometimes it comes out dry and compact. Sperm capable of impregnating or of fructification sinks in water; sperm incapable Of producing that result dissolves away. But there is no truth in what Ctesias has written about the sperm of the elephant.
Book IV
1
We have now treated, in regard to blooded animals of the parts they have in common and of the parts peculiar to this genus or that, and of the parts both composite and simple, whether without or within. We now proceed to treat of animals devoid of blood. These animals are divided into several genera.
One genus consists of so-called 'molluscs'; and by the term 'mollusc' we mean an animal that, being devoid of blood, has its flesh-like substance outside, and any hard structure it may happen to have, inside-in this respect resembling the red-blooded animals, such as the genus of the cuttle-fish.
Another genus is that of the malacostraca. These are animals that have their hard structure outside, and their soft or fleshlike substance inside, and the hard substance belonging to them has to be crushed rather than shattered; and to this genus belongs the crawfish and the crab.
A third genus is that of the ostracoderms or 'testaceans'. These are animals that have their hard substance outside and their flesh-like substance within, and their hard substance can be shattered but not crushed; and to this genus belong the snail and the oyster.
The fourth genus is that of insects; and this genus comprehends numerous and dissimilar species. Insects are creatures that, as the name implies, have nicks either on the belly or on the back, or on both belly and back, and have no one part distinctly osseous and no one part distinctly fleshy, but are throughout a something intermediate between bone and flesh; that is to say, their body is hard all through, inside and outside. Some insects are wingless, such as the iulus and the centipede; some are winged, as the bee, the cockchafer, and the wasp; and the same kind is in some cases both winged and wingless, as the ant and the glow-worm.
In molluscs the external parts are as follows: in the first place, the so-called feet; secondly, and attached to these, the head; thirdly, the mantle-sac, containing the internal parts, and incorrectly designated by some writers the head; and, fourthly, fins round about the sac. (See diagram. ) In all molluscs the head is found to be between the feet and the belly. All molluscs are furnished with eight feet, and in all cases these feet are severally furnished with a double row of suckers, with the exception of one single species of poulpe or octopus. The sepia, the small calamary and the large calamary have an exceptional organ in a pair of long arms or tentacles, having at their extremities a portion rendered rough by the presence of two rows of suckers; and with these arms or tentacles they apprehend their food and draw it into their mouths, and in stormy weather they cling by them to a rock and sway about in the rough water like ships lying at anchor. They swim by the aid of the fins that they have about the sac. In all cases their feet are furnished with suckers.
The octopus, by the way, uses his feelers either as feet or hands; with the two which stand over his mouth he draws in food, and the last of his feelers he employs in the act of copulation; and this last one, by the way, is extremely sharp, is exceptional as being of a whitish colour, and at its extremity is bifurcate; that is to say, it has an additional something on the rachis, and by rachis is meant the smooth surface or edge of the arm on the far side from the suckers. (See diagram. )
In front of the sac and over the feelers they have a hollow tube, by means of which they discharge any sea-water that they may have taken into the sac of the body in the act of receiving food by the mouth. They can shift the tube from side to side, and by means of it they discharge the black liquid peculiar to the animal.
Stretching out its feet, it swims obliquely in the direction of the so-called head, and by this mode of swimming it can see in front, for its eyes are at the top, and in this attitude it has its mouth at the rear. The 'head', while the creature is alive, is hard, and looks as though it were inflated. It apprehends and retains objects by means of the under-surface of its arms, and the membrane in between its feet is kept at full tension; if the animal get on to the sand it can no longer retain its hold.
There is a difference between the octopus and the other molluscs above mentioned: the body of the octopus is small, and his feet are long, whereas in the others the body is large and the feet short; so short, in fact, that they cannot walk on them. Compared with one another, the teuthis, or calamary, is long-shaped, and the sepia flat-shaped; and of the calamaries the so-called teuthus is much bigger than the teuthis; for teuthi have been found as much as five ells long. Some sepiae attain a length of two ells, and the feelers of the octopus are sometimes as long, or even longer. The species teuthus is not a numerous one; the teuthus differs from the teuthis in shape; that is, the sharp extremity of the teuthus is broader than that of the other, and, further, the encircling fin goes all round the trunk, whereas it is in part lacking in the teuthis; both animals are pelagic.
In all cases the head comes after the feet, in the middle of the feet that are called arms or feelers. There is here situated a mouth, and two teeth in the mouth; and above these two large eyes, and betwixt the eyes a small cartilage enclosing a small brain; and within the mouth it has a minute organ of a fleshy nature, and this it uses as a tongue, for no other tongue does it possess. Next after this, on the outside, is what looks like a sac; the flesh of which it is made is divisible, not in long straight strips, but in annular flakes; and all molluscs have a cuticle around this flesh. Next after or at the back of the mouth comes a long and narrow oesophagus, and close after that a crop or craw, large and spherical, like that of a bird; then comes the stomach, like the fourth stomach in ruminants; and the shape of it resembles the spiral convolution in the trumpet-shell; from the stomach there goes back again, in the direction of the mouth, thin gut, and the gut is thicker than the oesophagus. (See diagram. )
Molluscs have no viscera, but they have what is called a mytis, and on it a vessel containing a thick black juice; in the sepia or cuttle-fish this vessel is the largest, and this juice is most abundant. All molluscs, when frightened, discharge such a juice, but the discharge is most copious in the cuttle-fish. The mytis, then, is situated under the mouth, and the oesophagus runs through it; and down below at the point to which the gut extends is the vesicle of the black juice, and the animal has the vesicle and the gut enveloped in one and the same membrane, and by the same membrane, same orifice discharges both the black juice and the residuum. The animals have also certain hair-like or furry growths in their bodies.
In the sepia, the teuthis, and the teuthus the hard parts are within, towards the back of the body; those parts are called in one the sepium, and in the other the 'sword'. They differ from one another, for the sepium in the cuttle-fish and teuthus is hard and flat, being a substance intermediate between bone and fishbone, with (in part) a crumbling, spongy texture, but in the teuthis the part is thin and somewhat gristly. These parts differ from one another in shape, as do also the bodies of the animals. The octopus has nothing hard of this kind in its interior, but it has a gristly substance round the head, which, if the animal grows old, becomes hard.
The females differ from the males. The males have a duct in under the oesophagus, extending from the mantle-cavity to the lower portion of the sac, and there is an organ to which it attaches, resembling a breast; (see diagram) in the female there are two of these organs, situated higher up; (see diagram) with both sexes there are underneath these organs certain red formations. The egg of the octopus is single, uneven on its surface, and of large size; the fluid substance within is all uniform in colour, smooth, and in colour white; the size of the egg is so great as to fill a vessel larger than the creature's head. The sepia has two sacs, and inside them a number of eggs, like in appearance to white hailstones. For the disposition of these parts I must refer to my anatomical diagrams.
The males of all these animals differ from the females, and the difference between the sexes is most marked in the sepia; for the back of the trunk, which is blacker than the belly, is rougher in the male than in the female, and in the male the back is striped, and the rump is more sharply pointed.
There are several species of the octopus. One keeps close to the surface, and is the largest of them all, and near the shore the size is larger than in deep water; and there are others, small, variegated in colour, which are not articles of food. There are two others, one called the heledone, which differs from its congeners in the length of its legs and in having one row of suckers-all the rest of the molluscs having two,-the other nicknamed variously the bolitaina or the 'onion,' and the ozolis or the 'stinkard'.
There are two others found in shells resembling those of the testaceans. One of them is nicknamed by some persons the nautilus or the pontilus, or by others the 'polypus' egg'; and the shell of this creature is something like a separate valve of a deep scallop-shell. This polypus lives very often near to the shore, and is apt to be thrown up high and dry on the beach; under these circumstances it is found with its shell detached, and dies by and by on dry land.
These polypods are small, and are shaped, as regards the form of their bodies, like the bolbidia. There is another polypus that is placed within a shell like a snail; it never comes out of the shell, but lives inside the shell like the snail, and from time to time protrudes its feelers.
So much for molluscs.
2
With regard to the Malacostraca or crustaceans, one species is that of the crawfish, and a second, resembling the first, is that of the lobster; the lobster differing from the crawfish in having claws, and in a few other respects as well. Another species is that of the carid, and another is that of the crab, and there are many kinds both of carid and of crab.
Of carids there are the so-called cyphae, or 'hunch-backs', the crangons, or squillae, and the little kind, or shrimps, and the little kind do not develop into a larger kind.
Of the crab, the varieties are indefinite and incalculable. The largest of all crabs is one nicknamed Maia, a second variety is the pagarus and the crab of Heracleotis, and a third variety is the fresh-water crab; the other varieties are smaller in size and destitute of special designations. In the neighbourhood of Phoenice there are found on the beach certain crabs that are nicknamed the 'horsemen', from their running with such speed that it is difficult to overtake them; these crabs, when opened, are usually found empty, and this emptiness may be put down to insufficiency of nutriment. (There is another variety, small like the crab, but resembling in shape the lobster. ) All these animals, as has been stated, have their hard and shelly part outside, where the skin is in other animals, and the fleshy part inside; and the belly is more or less provided with lamellae, or little flaps, and the female here deposits her spawn.
The crawfishes have five feet on either side, including the claws at the end; and in like manner the crabs have ten feet in all, including the claws. Of the carids, the hunch-backed, or prawns, have five feet on either side, which are sharp-pointed-those towards the head; and five others on either side in the region of the belly, with their extremities flat; they are devoid of flaps on the under side such as the crawfish has, but on the back they resemble the crawfish. (See diagram. )It is very different with the crangon, or squilla; it has four front legs on either side, then three thin ones close behind on either side, and the rest of the body is for the most part devoid of feet. (See diagram. ) Of all these animals the feet bend out obliquely, as is the case with insects; and the claws, where claws are found, turn inwards. The crawfish has a tail, and five fins on it; and the round-backed carid has a tail and four fins; the squilla also has fins at the tail on either side. In the case of both the hump-backed carid and the squilla the middle art of the tail is spinous: only that in the squilla the part is flattened and in the carid it is sharp-pointed. Of all animals of this genus the crab is the only one devoid of a rump; and, while the body of the carid and the crawfish is elongated, that of the crab is rotund.
In the crawfish the male differs from the female: in the female the first foot is bifurcate, in the male it is undivided; the belly-fins in the female are large and overlapping on the neck, while in the male they are smaller and do not overlap; and, further, on the last feet of the male there are spur-like projections, large and sharp, which projections in the female are small and smooth. Both male and female have two antennae in front of the eyes, large and rough, and other antennae underneath, small and smooth. The eyes of all these creatures are hard and beady, and can move either to the inner or to the outer side. The eyes of most crabs have a similar facility of movement, or rather, in the crab this facility is developed in a higher degree. (See diagram. )
The lobster is all over grey-coloured, with a mottling of black. Its under or hinder feet, up to the big feet or claws, are eight in number; then come the big feet, far larger and flatter at the tips than the same organs in the crawfish; and these big feet or claws are exceptional in their structure, for the right claw has the extreme flat surface long and thin, while the left claw has the corresponding surface thick and round. Each of the two claws, divided at the end like a pair of jaws, has both below and above a set of teeth: only that in the right claw they are all small and saw-shaped, while in the left claw those at the apex are saw-shaped and those within are molar-shaped, these latter being, in the under part of the cleft claw, four teeth close together, and in the upper part three teeth, not close together. Both right and left claws have the upper part mobile, and bring it to bear against the lower one, and both are curved like bandy-legs, being thereby adapted for apprehension and constriction. Above the two large claws come two others, covered with hair, a little underneath the mouth; and underneath these the gill-like formations in the region of the mouth, hairy and numerous. These organs the animal keeps in perpetual motion; and the two hairy feet it bends and draws in towards its mouth. The feet near the mouth are furnished also with delicate outgrowing appendages. Like the crawfish, the lobster has two teeth, or mandibles, and above these teeth are its antennae, long, but shorter and finer by far than those of the crawfish, and then four other antennae similar in shape, but shorter and finer than the others. Over these antennae come the eyes, small and short, not large like the eyes of the crawfish. Over the eyes is a peaky rough projection like a forehead, larger than the same part in the crawfish; in fact, the frontal part is more pointed and the thorax is much broader in the lobster than in the crawfish, and the body in general is smoother and more full of flesh. Of the eight feet, four are bifurcate at the extremities, and four are undivided. The region of the so-called neck is outwardly divided into five divisions, and sixthly comes the flattened portion at the end, and this portion has five flaps, or tail-fins; and the inner or under parts, into which the female drops her spawn, are four in number and hairy, and on each of the aforesaid parts is a spine turned outwards, short and straight. The body in general and the region of the thorax in particular are smooth, not rough as in the crawfish; but on the large claws the outer portion has larger spines. There is no apparent difference between the male and female, for they both have one claw, whichever it may be, larger than the other, and neither male nor female is ever found with both claws of the same size.
All crustaceans take in water close by the mouth. The crab discharges it, closing up, as it does so, a small portion of the same, and the crawfish discharges it by way of the gills; and, by the way, the gill-shaped organs in the crawfish are very numerous.
The following properties are common to all crustaceans: they have in all cases two teeth, or mandibles (for the front teeth in the crawfish are two in number), and in all cases there is in the mouth a small fleshy structure serving for a tongue; and the stomach is close to the mouth, only that the crawfish has a little oesophagus in front of the stomach, and there is a straight gut attached to it. This gut, in the crawfish and its congeners, and in the carids, extends in a straight line to the tail, and terminates where the animal discharges the residuum, and where the female deposits her spawn; in the crab it terminates where the flap is situated, and in the centre of the flap. (And by the way, in all these animals the spawn is deposited outside. ) Further, the female has the place for the spawn running along the gut. And, again, all these animals have, more or less, an organ termed the 'mytis', or 'poppyjuice'.
We must now proceed to review their several differentiae.
The crawfish then, as has been said, has two teeth, large and hollow, in which is contained a juice resembling the mytis, and in between the teeth is a fleshy substance, shaped like a tongue. After the mouth comes a short oesophagus, and then a membranous stomach attached to the oesophagus, and at the orifice Of the stomach are three teeth, two facing one another and a third standing by itself underneath. Coming off at a bend from the stomach is a gut, simple and of equal thickness throughout the entire length of the body until it reaches the anal vent.
These are all common properties of the crawfish, the carid, and the crab; for the crab, be it remembered, has two teeth.
Again, the crawfish has a duct attached all the way from the chest to the anal vent; and this duct is connected with the ovary in the female, and with the seminal ducts in the male. This passage is attached to the concave surface of the flesh in such a way that the flesh is in betwixt the duct and the gut; for the gut is related to the convexity and this duct to the concavity, pretty much as is observed in quadrupeds. And the duct is identical in both the sexes; that is to say, the duct in both is thin and white, and charged with a sallow-coloured moisture, and is attached to the chest.
(The following are the properties of the egg and of the convolutes in the carid. )
The male, by the way, differs from the female in regard to its flesh, in having in connexion with the chest two separate and distinct white substances, resembling in colour and conformation the tentacles of the cuttle-fish, and they are convoluted like the 'poppy' or quasi-liver of the trumpet-shell. These organs have their starting-point in 'cotyledons' or papillae, which are situated under the hindmost feet; and hereabouts the flesh is red and blood-coloured, but is slippery to the touch and in so far unlike flesh. Off from the convolute organ at the chest branches off another coil about as thick as ordinary twine; and underneath there are two granular seminal bodies in juxta-position with the gut. These are the organs of the male. The female has red-coloured eggs, which are adjacent to the stomach and to each side of the gut all along to the fleshy parts, being enveloped in a thin membrane.
Such are the parts, internal and external, of the carid.
3
The inner organs of sanguineous animals happen to have specific designations; for these animals have in all cases the inner viscera, but this is not the case with the bloodless animals, but what they have in common with red-blooded animals is the stomach, the oesophagus, and the gut.
With regard to the crab, it has already been stated that it has claws and feet, and their position has been set forth; furthermore, for the most part they have the right claw bigger and stronger than the left. It has also been stated' that in general the eyes of the crab look sideways. Further, the trunk of the crab's body is single and undivided, including its head and any other part it may possess. Some crabs have eyes placed sideways on the upper part, immediately under the back, and standing a long way apart, and some have their eyes in the centre and close together, like the crabs of Heracleotis and the so-called 'grannies'. The mouth lies underneath the eyes, and inside it there are two teeth, as is the case with the crawfish, only that in the crab the teeth are not rounded but long; and over the teeth are two lids, and in betwixt them are structures such as the crawfish has besides its teeth. The crab takes in water near by the mouth, using the lids as a check to the inflow, and discharges the water by two passages above the mouth, closing by means of the lids the way by which it entered; and the two passage-ways are underneath the eyes. When it has taken in water it closes its mouth by means of both lids, and ejects the water in the way above described. Next after the teeth comes the oesophagus, very short, so short in fact that the stomach seems to come straightway after the mouth. Next after the oesophagus comes the stomach, two-horned, to the centre of which is attached a simple and delicate gut; and the gut terminates outwards, at the operculum, as has been previously stated. (The crab has the parts in between the lids in the neighbourhood of the teeth similar to the same parts in the crawfish. ) Inside the trunk is a sallow juice and some few little bodies, long and white, and others spotted red. The male differs from the female in size and breadth, and in respect of the ventral flap; for this is larger in the female than in the male, and stands out further from the trunk, and is more hairy (as is the case also with the female in the crawfish).
So much, then, for the organs of the malacostraca or crustacea.
4
With the ostracoderma, or testaceans, such as the land-snails and the sea-snails, and all the 'oysters' so-called, and also with the sea-urchin genus, the fleshy part, in such as have flesh, is similarly situated to the fleshy part in the crustaceans; in other words, it is inside the animal, and the shell is outside, and there is no hard substance in the interior. As compared with one another the testaceans present many diversities both in regard to their shells and to the flesh within. Some of them have no flesh at all, as the sea-urchin; others have flesh, but it is inside and wholly hidden, except the head, as in the land-snails, and the so-called cocalia, and, among pelagic animals, in the purple murex, the ceryx or trumpet-shell, the sea-snail, and the spiral-shaped testaceans in general. Of the rest, some are bivalved and some univalved; and by 'bivalves' I mean such as are enclosed within two shells, and by 'univalved' such as are enclosed within a single shell, and in these last the fleshy part is exposed, as in the case of the limpet. Of the bivalves, some can open out, like the scallop and the mussel; for all such shells are grown together on one side and are separate on the other, so as to open and shut. Other bivalves are closed on both sides alike, like the solen or razor-fish. Some testaceans there are, that are entirely enveloped in shell and expose no portion of their flesh outside, as the tethya or ascidians.
Again, in regard to the shells themselves, the testaceans present differences when compared with one another. Some are smooth-shelled, like the solen, the mussel, and some clams, viz. those that are nicknamed 'milkshells', while others are rough-shelled, such as the pool-oyster or edible oyster, the pinna, and certain species of cockles, and the trumpet shells; and of these some are ribbed, such as the scallop and a certain kind of clam or cockle, and some are devoid of ribs, as the pinna and another species of clam. Testaceans also differ from one another in regard to the thickness or thinness of their shell, both as regards the shell in its entirety and as regards specific parts of the shell, for instance, the lips; for some have thin-lipped shells, like the mussel, and others have thick-lipped shells, like the oyster. A property common to the above mentioned, and, in fact, to all testaceans, is the smoothness of their shells inside. Some also are capable of motion, like the scallop, and indeed some aver that scallops can actually fly, owing to the circumstance that they often jump right out of the apparatus by means of which they are caught; others are incapable of motion and are attached fast to some external object, as is the case with the pinna. All the spiral-shaped testaceans can move and creep, and even the limpet relaxes its hold to go in quest of food. In the case of the univalves and the bivalves, the fleshy substance adheres to the shell so tenaciously that it can only be removed by an effort; in the case of the stromboids, it is more loosely attached. And a peculiarity of all the stromboids is the spiral twist of the shell in the part farthest away from the head; they are also furnished from birth with an operculum. And, further, all stromboid testaceans have their shells on the right hand side, and move not in the direction of the spire, but the opposite way. Such are the diversities observed in the external parts of these animals.
The internal structure is almost the same in all these creatures, and in the stromboids especially; for it is in size that these latter differ from one another, and in accidents of the nature of excess or defect. And there is not much difference between most of the univalves and bivalves; but, while those that open and shut differ from one another but slightly, they differ considerably from such as are incapable of motion. And this will be illustrated more satisfactorily hereafter.
The spiral-shaped testaceans are all similarly constructed, but differ from one another, as has been said, in the way of excess or defect (for the larger species have larger and more conspicuous organs, and the smaller have smaller and less conspicuous), and, furthermore, in relative hardness or softness, and in other such accidents or properties. All the stromboids, for instance, have the flesh that extrudes from the mouth of the shell, hard and stiff; some more, and some less. From the middle of this protrudes the head and two horns, and these horns are large in the large species, but exceedingly minute in the smaller ones. The head protrudes from them all in the same way; and, if the animal be alarmed, the head draws in again. Some of these creatures have a mouth and teeth, as the snail; teeth sharp, and small, and delicate. They have also a proboscis just like that of the fly; and the proboscis is tongue-shaped. The ceryx and the purple murex have this organ firm and solid; and just as the myops, or horse-fly, and the oestrus, or gadfly, can pierce the skin of a quadruped, so is that proboscis proportionately stronger in these testaceans; for they bore right through the shells of other shell-fish on which they prey. The stomach follows close upon the mouth, and, by the way, this organ in the snail resembles a bird's crop. Underneath come two white firm formations, mastoid or papillary in form; and similar formations are found in the cuttle-fish also, only that they are of a firmer consistency in the cuttle-fish. After the stomach comes an oesophagus, simple and long, extending to the poppy or quasi-liver, which is in the innermost recess of the shell. All these statements may be verified in the case of the purple murex and the ceryx by observation within the whorl of the shell. What comes next to the oesophagus is the gut; in fact, the gut is continuous with the oesophagus, and runs its whole length uncomplicated to the outlet of the residuum. The gut has its point of origin in the region of the coil of the mecon, or so-called 'poppy', and is wider hereabouts (for remember, the mecon is for the most part a sort of excretion in all testaceans); it then takes a bend and runs up again towards the fleshy part, and terminates by the side of the head, where the animal discharges its residuum; and this holds good in the case of all stromboid testaceans, whether terrestrial or marine. From the stomach there is drawn in a parallel direction with the oesophagus, in the larger snails, a long white duct enveloped in a membrane, resembling in colour the mastoid formations higher up; and in it are nicks or interruptions, as in the egg-mass of the crawfish, only, by the way, the duct of which we are treating is white and the egg-mass of the crawfish is red. This formation has no outlet nor duct, but is enveloped in a thin membrane with a narrow cavity in its interior. And from the gut downward extend black and rough formations, in close connexion, something like the formations in the tortoise, only not so black. Marine snails, also, have these formations, and the white ones, only that the formations are smaller in the smaller species.
The non-spiral univalves and bivalves are in some respect similar in construction, and in some respects dissimilar, to the spiral testaceans. They all have a head and horns, and a mouth, and the organ resembling a tongue; but these organs, in the smaller species, are indiscernible owing to the minuteness of these animals, and some are indiscernible even in the larger species when dead, or when at rest and motionless. They all have the mecon, or poppy, but not all in the same place, nor of equal size, nor similarly open to observation; thus, the limpets have this organ deep down in the bottom of the shell, and the bivalves at the hinge connecting the two valves. They also have in all cases the hairy growths or beards, in a circular form, as in the scallops. And, with regard to the so-called 'egg', in those that have it, when they have it, it is situated in one of the semi-circles of the periphery, as is the case with the white formation in the snail; for this white formation in the snail corresponds to the so-called egg of which we are speaking. But all these organs, as has been stated, are distinctly traceable in the larger species, while in the small ones they are in some cases almost, and in others altogether, indiscernible. Hence they are most plainly visible in the large scallops; and these are the bivalves that have one valve flat-shaped, like the lid of a pot. The outlet of the excretion is in all these animals (save for the exception to be afterwards related) on one side; for there is a passage whereby the excretion passes out. (And, remember, the mecon or poppy, as has been stated, is an excretion in all these animals-an excretion enveloped in a membrane. ) The so-called egg has no outlet in any of these creatures, but is merely an excrescence in the fleshy mass; and it is not situated in the same region with the gut, but the 'egg' is situated on the right-hand side and the gut on the left. Such are the relations of the anal vent in most of these animals; but in the case of the wild limpet (called by some the 'sea-ear'), the residuum issues beneath the shell, for the shell is perforated to give an outlet. In this particular limpet the stomach is seen coming after the mouth, and the egg-shaped formations are discernible. But for the relative positions of these parts you are referred to my Treatise on Anatomy.
The so-called carcinium or hermit crab is in a way intermediate between the crustaceans and the testaceans. In its nature it resembles the crawfish kind, and it is born simple of itself, but by its habit of introducing itself into a shell and living there it resembles the testaceans, and so appears to partake of the characters of both kinds. In shape, to give a simple illustration, it resembles a spider, only that the part below the head and thorax is larger in this creature than in the spider. It has two thin red horns, and underneath these horns two long eyes, not retreating inwards, nor turning sideways like the eyes of the crab, but protruding straight out; and underneath these eyes the mouth, and round about the mouth several hair-like growths, and next after these two bifurcate legs or claws, whereby it draws in objects towards itself, and two other legs on either side, and a third small one. All below the thorax is soft, and when opened in dissection is found to be sallow-coloured within. From the mouth there runs a single passage right on to the stomach, but the passage for the excretions is not discernible. The legs and the thorax are hard, but not so hard as the legs and the thorax of the crab. It does not adhere to its shell like the purple murex and the ceryx, but can easily slip out of it. It is longer when found in the shell of the stromboids than when found in the shell of the neritae.
And, by the way, the animal found in the shell of the neritae is a separate species, like to the other in most respects; but of its bifurcate feet or claws, the right-hand one is small and the left-hand one is large, and it progresses chiefly by the aid of this latter and larger one. (In the shells of these animals, and in certain others, there is found a parasite whose mode of attachment is similar. The particular one which we have just described is named the cyllarus. )
The nerites has a smooth large round shell, and resembles the ceryx in shape, only the poppy-juice is, in its case, not black but red. It clings with great force near the middle. In calm weather, then, they go free afield, but when the wind blows the carcinia take shelter against the rocks: the neritae themselves cling fast like limpets; and the same is the case with the haemorrhoid or aporrhaid and all others of the like kind. And, by the way, they cling to the rock, when they turn back their operculum, for this operculum seems like a lid; in fact this structure represents the one part, in the stromboids, of that which in the bivalves is a duplicate shell. The interior of the animal is fleshy, and the mouth is inside. And it is the same with the haemorrhoid, the purple murex, and all suchlike animals.
Such of the little crabs as have the left foot or claw the bigger of the two are found in the neritae, but not in the stromboids. are some snail-shells which have inside them creatures resembling those little crayfish that are also found in fresh water. These creatures, however, differ in having the part inside the shells But as to the characters, you are referred to my Treatise on Anatomy.
5
The urchins are devoid of flesh, and this is a character peculiar to them; and while they are in all cases empty and devoid of any flesh within, they are in all cases furnished with the black formations. There are several species of the urchin, and one of these is that which is made use of for food; this is the kind in which are found the so-called eggs, large and edible, in the larger and smaller specimens alike; for even when as yet very small they are provided with them. There are two other species, the spatangus, and the so-called bryssus, these animals are pelagic and scarce. Further, there are the echinometrae, or 'mother-urchins', the largest in size of all the species. In addition to these there is another species, small in size, but furnished with large hard spines; it lives in the sea at a depth of several fathoms; and is used by some people as a specific for cases of strangury. In the neighbourhood of Torone there are sea-urchins of a white colour, shells, spines, eggs and all, and that are longer than the ordinary sea-urchin. The spine in this species is not large nor strong, but rather limp; and the black formations in connexion with the mouth are more than usually numerous, and communicate with the external duct, but not with one another; in point of fact, the animal is in a manner divided up by them. The edible urchin moves with greatest freedom and most often; and this is indicated by the fact that these urchins have always something or other on their spines.
All urchins are supplied with eggs, but in some of the species the eggs are exceedingly small and unfit for food. Singularly enough, the urchin has what we may call its head and mouth down below, and a place for the issue of the residuum up above; (and this same property is common to all stromboids and to limpets). For the food on which the creature lives lies down below; consequently the mouth has a position well adapted for getting at the food, and the excretion is above, near to the back of the shell. The urchin has, also, five hollow teeth inside, and in the middle of these teeth a fleshy substance serving the office of a tongue. Next to this comes the oesophagus, and then the stomach, divided into five parts, and filled with excretion, all the five parts uniting at the anal vent, where the shell is perforated for an outlet. Underneath the stomach, in another membrane, are the so-called eggs, identical in number in all cases, and that number is always an odd number, to wit five. Up above, the black formations are attached to the starting-point of the teeth, and they are bitter to the taste, and unfit for food. A similar or at least an analogous formation is found in many animals; as, for instance, in the tortoise, the toad, the frog, the stromboids, and, generally, in the molluscs; but the formation varies here and there in colour, and in all cases is altogether uneatable, or more or less unpalatable. In reality the mouth-apparatus of the urchin is continuous from one end to the other, but to outward appearance it is not so, but looks like a horn lantern with the panes of horn left out. The urchin uses its spines as feet; for it rests its weight on these, and then moving shifts from place to place.
6
The so-called tethyum or ascidian has of all these animals the most remarkable characteristics. It is the only mollusc that has its entire body concealed within its shell, and the shell is a substance intermediate between hide and shell, so that it cuts like a piece of hard leather. It is attached to rocks by its shell, and is provided with two passages placed at a distance from one another, very minute and hard to see, whereby it admits and discharges the sea-water; for it has no visible excretion (whereas of shell fish in general some resemble the urchin in this matter of excretion, and others are provided with the so-called mecon, or poppy-juice). If the animal be opened, it is found to have, in the first place, a tendinous membrane running round inside the shell-like substance, and within this membrane is the flesh-like substance of the ascidian, not resembling that in other molluscs; but this flesh, to which I now allude, is the same in all ascidia. And this substance is attached in two places to the membrane and the skin, obliquely; and at the point of attachment the space is narrowed from side to side, where the fleshy substance stretches towards the passages that lead outwards through the shell; and here it discharges and admits food and liquid matter, just as it would if one of the passages were a mouth and the other an anal vent; and one of the passages is somewhat wider than the other Inside it has a pair of cavities, one on either side, a small partition separating them; and one of these two cavities contains the liquid. The creature has no other organ whether motor or sensory, nor, as was said in the case of the others, is it furnished with any organ connected with excretion, as other shell-fish are. The colour of the ascidian is in some cases sallow, and in other cases red.
There is, furthermore, the genus of the sea-nettles, peculiar in its way. The sea-nettle, or sea-anemone, clings to rocks like certain of the testaceans, but at times relaxes its hold. It has no shell, but its entire body is fleshy. It is sensitive to touch, and, if you put your hand to it, it will seize and cling to it, as the cuttlefish would do with its feelers, and in such a way as to make the flesh of your hand swell up. Its mouth is in the centre of its body, and it lives adhering to the rock as an oyster to its shell. If any little fish come up against it it it clings to it; in fact, just as I described it above as doing to your hand, so it does to anything edible that comes in its way; and it feeds upon sea-urchins and scallops. Another species of the sea-nettle roams freely abroad. The sea-nettle appears to be devoid altogether of excretion, and in this respect it resembles a plant.
Of sea-nettles there are two species, the lesser and more edible, and the large hard ones, such as are found in the neighbourhood of Chalcis. In winter time their flesh is firm, and accordingly they are sought after as articles of food, but in summer weather they are worthless, for they become thin and watery, and if you catch at them they break at once into bits, and cannot be taken off the rocks entire; and being oppressed by the heat they tend to slip back into the crevices of the rocks.
So much for the external and the internal organs of molluscs, crustaceans, and testaceans.
7
We now proceed to treat of insects in like manner. This genus comprises many species, and, though several kinds are clearly related to one another, these are not classified under one common designation, as in the case of the bee, the drone, the wasp, and all such insects, and again as in the case of those that have their wings in a sheath or shard, like the cockchafer, the carabus or stag-beetle, the cantharis or blister-beetle, and the like.
Insects have three parts common to them all; the head, the trunk containing the stomach, and a third part in betwixt these two, corresponding to what in other creatures embraces chest and back. In the majority of insects this intermediate part is single; but in the long and multipedal insects it has practically the same number of segments as of nicks.
All insects when cut in two continue to live, excepting such as are naturally cold by nature, or such as from their minute size chill rapidly; though, by the way, wasps notwithstanding their small size continue living after severance. In conjunction with the middle portion either the head or the stomach can live, but the head cannot live by itself. Insects that are long in shape and many-footed can live for a long while after being cut in twain, and the severed portions can move in either direction, backwards or forwards; thus, the hinder portion, if cut off, can crawl either in the direction of the section or in the direction of the tail, as is observed in the scolopendra.
All insects have eyes, but no other organ of sense discernible, except that some insects have a kind of a tongue corresponding to a similar organ common to all testaceans; and by this organ such insects taste and imbibe their food. In some insects this organ is soft; in other insects it is firm; as it is, by the way, in the purple-fish, among testaceans. In the horsefly and the gadfly this organ is hard, and indeed it is hard in most insects. In point of fact, such insects as have no sting in the rear use this organ as a weapon, (and, by the way, such insects as are provided with this organ are unprovided with teeth, with the exception of a few insects); the fly by a touch can draw blood with this organ, and the gnat can prick or sting with it.
Certain insects are furnished with prickers or stings. Some insects have the sting inside, as the bee and the wasp, others outside, as the scorpion; and, by the way, this is the only insect furnished with a long tail. And, further, the scorpion is furnished with claws, as is also the creature resembling a scorpion found within the pages of books.
In addition to their other organs, flying insects are furnished with wings. Some insects are dipterous or double-winged, as the fly; others are tetrapterous or furnished with four wings, as the bee; and, by the way, no insect with only two wings has a sting in the rear. Again, some winged insects have a sheath or shard for their wings, as the cockchafer; whereas in others the wings are unsheathed, as in the bee. But in the case of all alike, flight is in no way modified by tail-steerage, and the wing is devoid of quill-structure or division of any kind.
