Aristotle ON THE PARTS OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by W. Ogle.

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144 pages - You are on Page 91

Birds also present variations in the part which acts as a recipient of the food; and the reason for these variations is the same as in the animals just mentioned. For here again it is because the mouth fails to perform its office and fails even more completely-for birds have no teeth at all, nor any instrument whatsoever with which to comminute or grind down their food-it is, I say, because of this, that in some of them what is called the crop precedes the stomach and does the work of the mouth; while in others the oesophagus is either wide throughout or a part of it bulges just before it enters the stomach, so as to form a preparatory store-house for the unreduced food; or the stomach itself has a protuberance in some part, or is strong and fleshy, so as to be able to store up the food for a considerable period and to concoct it, in spite of its not having been ground into a pulp. For nature retrieves the inefficiency of the mouth by increasing the efficiency and heat of the stomach. Other birds there are, such, namely, as have long legs and live in marshes, that have none of these provisions, but merely an elongated oesophagus. The explanation of this is to be found in the moist character of their food. For all these birds feed on substances easy of reduction, and their food being moist and not requiring much concoction, their digestive cavities are of a corresponding character.

Fishes are provided with teeth, which in almost all of them are of the sharp interfitting kind. For there is but one small section in which it is otherwise. Of these the fish called Scarus (Parrot-fish) is an example. And this is probably the reason why this fish apparently ruminates, though no other fishes do so. For those horned animals that have no front teeth in the upper jaw also ruminate.

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