Aristotle ON THE PARTS OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by W. Ogle.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

144 pages - You are on Page 139

In all birds alike, whether web-footed or not, the number of toes in each foot is four. For the Libyan ostrich may be disregarded for the present, and its cloven hoof and other discrepancies of structure as compared with the tribe of birds will be considered further on. Of these four toes three are in front, while the fourth points backward, serving, as a heel, to give steadiness. In the long-legged birds this fourth toe is much shorter than the others, as is the case with the Crex, but the number of their toes is not increased. The arrangement of the toes is such as has been described in all birds with the exception of the wryneck. Here only two of the toes are in front, the other two behind; and the reason for this is that the body of the wryneck is not inclined forward so much as that of other birds. All birds have testicles; but they are inside the body. The reason for this will be given in the treatise On the Generation of Animals.

Part 13

Thus then are fashioned the parts of birds. But in fishes a still further stunting has occurred in the external parts. For here, for reasons already given, there are neither legs nor hands nor wings, the whole body from head to tail presenting one unbroken surface. This tail differs in different fishes, in some approximating in character to the fins, while in others, namely in some of the flat kinds, it is spinous and elongated, because the material which should have gone to the tail has been diverted thence and used to increase the breadth of the body. Such, for instance, is the case with the Torpedos, the Trygons, and whatever other Selachia there may be of like nature. In such fishes, then, the tail is spinous and long; while in some others it is short and fleshy, for the same reason which makes it spinous and long in the Torpedo. For to be short and fleshy comes to the same thing as to be long and less amply furnished with flesh.

What has occurred in the Fishing-frog is the reverse of what has occurred in the other instances just given. For here the anterior and broad part of the body is not of a fleshy character, and so all the fleshy substance which has been thence diverted has been placed by nature in the tail and hinder portion of the body.

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