Aristotle THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

128 pages - You are on Page 39

Some animals are, at one and the same time, furnished with a mane and furnished also with a pair of horns bent in towards one another, as is the bison (or aurochs), which is found in Paeonia and Maedica. But all animals that are horned are quadrupedal, except in cases where a creature is said metaphorically, or by a figure of speech, to have horns; just as the Egyptians describe the serpents found in the neighbourhood of Thebes, while in point of fact the creatures have merely protuberances on the head sufficiently large to suggest such an epithet.

Of horned animals the deer alone has a horn, or antler, hard and solid throughout. The horns of other animals are hollow for a certain distance, and solid towards the extremity. The hollow part is derived from the skin, but the core round which this is wrapped-the hard part-is derived from the bones; as is the case with the horns of oxen. The deer is the only animal that sheds its horns, and it does so annually, after reaching the age of two years, and again renews them. All other animals retain their horns permanently, unless the horns be damaged by accident.

Again, with regard to the breasts and the generative organs, animals differ widely from one another and from man. For instance, the breasts of some animals are situated in front, either in the chest or near to it, and there are in such cases two breasts and two teats, as is the case with man and the elephant, as previously stated. For the elephant has two breasts in the region of the axillae; and the female elephant has two breasts insignificant in size and in no way proportionate to the bulk of the entire frame, in fact, so insignificant as to be invisible in a sideways view; the males also have breasts, like the females, exceedingly small. The she-bear has four breasts. Some animals have two breasts, but situated near the thighs, and teats, likewise two in number, as the sheep; others have four teats, as the cow. Some have breasts neither in the chest nor at the thighs, but in the belly, as the dog and pig; and they have a considerable number of breasts or dugs, but not all of equal size. Thus the shepard has four dugs in the belly, the lioness two, and others more. The she-camel, also, has two dugs and four teats, like the cow. Of solid-hooved animals the males have no dugs, excepting in the case of males that take after the mother, which phenomenon is observable in horses.

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