Aristotle ON THE PARTS OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by W. Ogle.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

144 pages - You are on Page 131

In some oviparous quadrupeds, namely in lizards, the tongue is bifid, as also it is in serpents, and its terminal divisions are of hair-like fineness, as has already been described. (Seals also have a forked tongue.) This it is which accounts for all these animals being so fond of dainty food. The teeth in the four-footed Ovipara are of the sharp interfitting kind, like the teeth of fishes. The organs of all the senses are present and resemble those of other animals. Thus there are nostrils for smell, eves for vision, and ears for hearing. The latter organs, however, do not project from the sides of the head, but consist simply of the duct, as also is the case in birds. This is due in both cases to the hardness of the integument; birds having their bodies covered with feathers, and these oviparous quadrupeds with horny plates. These plates are equivalent to scales, but of a harder character. This is manifest in tortoises and river crocodiles, and also in the large serpents. For here the plates become stronger than the bones, being seemingly of the same substance as these.

These animals have no upper eyelid, but close the eye with the lower lid In this they resemble birds, and the reason is the same as was assigned in their case. Among birds there are some that can not only thus close the eye, but can also blink by means of a membrane which comes from its corner. But none of the oviparous quadrupeds blink; for their eyes are harder than those of birds. The reason for this is that keen vision and far-sightedness are of very considerable service to birds, flying as they do in the air, whereas they would be of comparatively small use to the oviparous quadrupeds, seeing that they are all of troglodytic habits.

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