Translated by H.Rackham (1952), with some minor alterations. Click on the L symbols to go to the Latin text of each chapter.
{33.} L [96] Of insects some have two wings, for instance, flies, and some four, for instance bees. The tree-cricket also flies with its membranes. Those armed with a sting in the belly have four wings, but none having a weapon in the mouth has more than two wings to fly with, for the former have this weapon bestowed on them for the sake of vengeance but the latter for the purpose of greed. No insects' wings when torn off grow again. None that has a sting in the belly is two-winged.
{34.} L [97] In some species the wings are protected by an outer covering of shell, for instance beetles ; in these species the wing is thinner and more fragile. They are not provided with a sting, but in one large variety of them there are very long horns, with two prongs and toothed claws at the point which close together at pleasure for a bite ; they are actually hung round children's necks as amulets ; Nigidius calls these Lucanian oxen. [98] Another kind of them again is one that rolls up backwards with its feet vast balls of mud and nests its brood of little grubs in these against the rigour of winter. Others flutter about with a loud murmur or a shrill noise, and others giving out a buzz bore numerous holes in hearths and walls in the night. Glow worms shine like fires at night time owing to the colour of their sides and loins, now giving a flash of light by opening their wings and now darkened by closing them ; they are not much seen before the crops are ripe or after they have been cut. [99] The cockroaches' life on the contrary is a nurseling of the shadows, and they fly the light, being mostly produced in the damp warmth of bathhouses. The reddish and very large beetles of the same kind dig dry earth and mould combs that resemble a small porous sponge and contain poisoned honey. There is a small place near Olynthus in Thrace that is fatal to this animal, and is consequently called Beetle-bane. [100] The wings of all varieties of insects have no cleft. None has a tail except the scorpion. This is the only insect that has arms, and also a spike in the tail ; some of the rest have a sting, for instance the gad-fly (or if you like, 'breeze'), and also the gnat and some flies, but with all of these it is in the mouth and serves as a tongue. With some these stings are blunt, and do not serve for pricking but for suction - for instance with a sort of fly, in which the tongue is evidently a tube ; and this sort of insect have no teeth. Others, for instance butterflies, have useless little horns projecting in front of their eyes. Some insects, for instance the centipede, have no wings.
{35.} L [101] Insects that have feet can move sideways. Of some, for instance locusts, the hind feet are longer and curve outward.
Locusts in the autumn season give birth to clusters of eggs, by lowering the tube of the prickle to the earth. The eggs last for the winter, but in the ensuing year at the end of spring send out small insects, that are blackish and have no legs, and crawl with their wing-feathers. Consequently spring rains kill the eggs, whereas in a dry spring there are larger broods. [102] Others record that they have two breeding seasons and two seasons when they die off - bearing at the rise of the Pleiades and then dying at the rise of the dog-star, others being born in their place ; some say that this second brood is born at the setting of Arcturus. It is certain that the mothers die when they have given birth to a brood, a maggot immediately forming inside them in the region of the throat that chokes them. The males die at the same time. And although dying for such a trifling reason a single locust when it likes can kill a snake by gripping its throat with its teeth. They are born only in places with chinks in them. [103] There are said to be locusts in India three feet long, with legs and thighs that when they have been dried can be used as saws. They also have another way of dying : they are carried away in swarms by the wind and fall into the sea or a marsh. This happens purely by accident and not, as was believed by ancient writers, owing to their wings being drenched by the dampness of night. The same people indeed have also stated that they do not fly by night because of the cold - not being aware that they cross even wide seas, actually, which is most surprising, enduring several days' continuous hunger, to remedy which they know how to seek fodder abroad. [104] This plague is interpreted as a sign of the wrath of the gods ; for they are seen of exceptional size, and also they fly with such a noise of wings that they are believed to be birds, and they obscure the sun, making the nations gaze upward in anxiety lest they should settle all over their lands. In fact their strength does not fail, and as though it were not enough to have crossed the seas, they pass over immense tracts of land and cover them with a cloud disastrous for the crops, scorching up many things with their touch and gnawing away everything with their bite, even the doors of the houses as well.
[105] Italy is infested by swarms of them, coming principally from Africa, the Roman nation having often been compelled by fear of dearth to resort to remedies prescribed by the Sibylline Books. In the district of Cyrene there is actually a law to make war upon them three times a year, the first time by crushing the eggs, then the grubs and last the fully grown insects, with the penalty of a deserter for the man who shirks. [106] Also in the Island of Lemnos there is a rule prescribing a definite quantity of locusts killed that each man has to bring in to the magistrates. Also they keep jays for this purpose, which meet them by flying in the opposite direction, to their destruction. In Syria as well people are commandeered by military order to kill them. In so many parts of the world is this plague abroad; but with the Parthians even the locust is an acceptable article of diet.
[107] The locust's voice appears to come from the back of the head : it is believed that in that place at the juncture of the shoulder-blades they have a sort of teeth, and that they produce a grating noise by rubbing them together, chiefly about the two equinoxes, as grasshoppers do about midsummer. Locusts couple in the same manner as all insects that pair, the female carrying the male with the end of her tail bent back to him, and with slow separation. In all this class the males are smaller than the females.
{36.} L [108] Most of the insects give birth to a maggot ; ants for example produce in spring one that resembles an egg, these too sharing their labour as do bees, but bees make the food stuffs, whereas ants collect theirs. And if anybody compared the loads that ants carry with the size of their bodies, he would confess that no creatures have proportionally greater strength ; they carry them held in their mouths, but they move larger loads with their hind feet, turning their backs to them and heaving against them with their shoulders. Ants also have a system of government, and possess memory and diligence. [109] They nibble their seeds before they store them away, so that they may not sprout up again out of the earth and germinate ; they divide the larger seeds so as to get them in; when they have been wetted by rain they bring them out and dry them. They even work at night when there is a full moon, although when there is no moon they stop. Again what industry and what diligence is displayed in their work ! and since they bring their burdens together from opposite directions, and are unknown to one another, certain days are assigned for market so that they may become acquainted. [110] How they flock together on these occasions ! How busily they converse, so to speak, with those they meet and press them with questions ! We see rocks worn by their passage and a path made by their labours, so that nobody may doubt how much can be accomplished in any matter by even a trifling amount of assiduity ! They are the only living creatures beside man that bury their dead. - Winged ants do not occur in Sicily.
[111] The horns of an Indian ant fixed up in the Temple of Hercules were one of the sights of Erythrae. These ants carry gold out of caves in the earth in the region of the Northern Indians called the Dardae. The creatures are of the colour of cats and the size of Egyptian wolves. The gold that they dig up in winter time the Indians steal in the hot weather of summer, when the heat makes the ants hide in burrows ; but nevertheless they are attracted by their scent and fly out and sting them repeatedly although retreating on very fast camels : such speed and such ferocity do these creatures combine with their love of gold.
{37.} L [112] Many insects however are born in other ways as well, and in the first place from dew. At the beginning of spring this lodges on the leaf of a radish and is condensed by the sun and shrinks to the size of a millet seed. Out of this a small maggot develops, and three days later it becomes a caterpillar, which as days are added grows larger; it becomes motionless, with a hard skin, and only moves when touched, being covered with a cobweb growth - at this stage it is called a chrysalis. Then it bursts its covering and flies out as a butterfly.
{38.} L [113] In this way some creatures are generated from rain in the earth and some even in wood. For not only is the goat-moth caterpillar born in wood, but also the horse-fly springs from wood, and other creatures, wherever there is excessive damp, {39.} L just as tape-worms thirty feet in length, sometimes even more, grow inside a human being, [114] Again worms are born in the flesh of dead bodies and also in the hair of living people, a foul growth that caused the death of the dictator Sulla and also of one of the most famous of Greek poets, Alcman. This indeed also infests birds, and actually kills pheasants unless they sprinkle themselves with dust ; [115] and of hairy animals it is believed that only the ass and sheep are immune from this evil, They also breed in one kind of clothing especially, woollen made from sheep that have been killed by wolves, Also I find in the authorities that some springs of water in which we bathe are specially productive of this kind of creature ; inasmuch as even wax generates what is believed to be the smallest of animals. Others again are generated out of dirt by the rays of the sun, creatures that hop with a frisk of their hind legs, and others out of damp dust, that fly about in caves,
{40.} L [116] There is an animal belonging to the same season that always lives with its head fixed in the blood of a host, and consequently goes on swelling, as it is the only animal that has no vent for its food : with gorging to excess it bursts, so dying of its very nutriment. This creature never grows in carthorses but occurs frequently in oxen and occasionally in dogs, in which all creatures breed, whereas this alone occurs in sheep and goats. Equally remarkable is the thirst for blood that is even felt by leeches in marshy water ; for they too penetrate with the whole of their head. Dogs have a special pest of their own, a maggot that lances particularly their ears, which they cannot protect by their bite.
{41.} L [117] Similarly, dust in woollens and in clothes breeds moths, especially if a spider is shut up with them ; for being thirsty and sucking up all the moisture it increases the dryness. This is also noticed in papers. There is a kind of moths that carry their own coats in the same way as snails ; but the moths have visible feet. If stripped of their coats they die, but if they grow up, they form a chrysalis. [118] The wild fig-tree breeds fig-gnats ; beetles are produced by the maggots of figs and of the pear tree, pine, dog-rose and rose. This poisonous creature brings its remedies with it - the wings have a healing power ; but with these removed it is deadly. Again, other kinds, namely gnats, are bred by a substance growing sour, and in fact white ones are found even in snow, and also in snow that has been lying for some time maggots, which in a moderate depth of snow at all events are ruddy - for even snow itself turns reddish with lapse of time ; these have shaggy hair and are of considerable size, and torpid.
{42.} L [119] Some creatures are generated also by the opposite natural element. Thus in the copper foundries of Cyprus even in the middle of the fire there flies a creature with wings and four legs, of the size of a rather large fly ; it is called the pyrallis, or by some the pyrotocon. As long as it is in the fire it lives, but when it leaves it on a rather long flight it dies off.
{43.} L [120] The river Hypanis on the Black Sea at midsummer brings down some thin membranes that look like berries out of which burst a four-legged caterpillar in the manner of the creature mentioned above, but it does not live beyond one day, owing to which it is called the hemerobius. The rest of this sort of creatures have from start to finish seven-day periods, but the gnat and maggots have twenty-one-day, and those whose offspring are fully formed twenty-eight-day periods. Their changes and transformations into other shapes take place every three or every four days. The remaining kinds of this class possessing wings usually die in autumn of decay of the wings, but horse-flies die of blindness also. When flies have been killed by damp they can be resuscitated by being buried in ashes.
{44.} L [121] Now let our investigation treat of the various parts of bodies besides the ones already mentioned, taking limb by limb.
All creatures that have blood have a head. On the head a few kinds, and these only birds, have crests, of different sorts it is true - with the phoenix it is a row of feathers spreading out from the middle of the head in a different direction, peacocks have bushy tufts, the bird of Stymphalus a crest, the pheasant little horns, as moreover has the small bird that was formerly named from this peculiarity the crested lark and subsequently was called by the Gallic word alauda and gave that name also to the legion so entitled. [122] We have also said which bird has been endowed by nature with a folding crest. Nature has also bestowed a crest that slopes backwards from the beak down the middle of the neck on the coot species, and also a tufted crest on Mars's woodpecker and on the Balearic crane, but she has given the most distinguished decoration to the poultry-cock - its fleshy, notched comb ; and this cannot rightly be described as flesh or gristle or hard skin, but is a gift peculiar to it : for no one can be found who has ever seen serpents' crests.
{45.} L [123] Many of the water and marine and snake species are furnished in various ways with horns of a sort, but horns in the proper sense of the term only belong to the genus quadrupeds ; for I deem the story of Actaeon, and also that of Cipus in the history of Latium, to be fabulous. And in no other field does nature allow herself more sport ; with the weapons of animals she has made a game - dividing some into branches, for instance, the horns of stags ; assigning simple horns to others, for instance, the species in the same genus called from this feature 'flute-stags,' spreading those of others into palms and making fingers shoot out from these, the origin of the designation 'broad-horn.' [124] To goats she has given branching but small horns, and these she has not made to be shed ; to the ram class horns twisted into a crooked shape, as if providing them with weighted gauntlets for boxing ; to bulls horns for attacking - in this class indeed she has also bestowed horns on the females, although in many she only gives them to the males ; to chamois horns curved over the back, to antelopes horns curved the opposite way ; but to the crook-horn, the African name for which is addax, upright horns twisted with a coil of wrinkles and sharpened at the end into a smooth point, so as to make them suitable for lyres ; also horns that are movable, like ears, to the cattle of Phrygia ; [125] horns pointing towards the ground to those belonging to the Troglodytes, which consequently graze with the neck bent sideways ; to other creatures a single horn, and this placed in the middle of the head or between the nostrils, as we have said: moreover some have strong horns for charging, others for striking ; some horns curved forward, some backward, some for tossing in various ways - curving backward, curving together, curving outward ; all ending in a point ; in one kind horns used instead of hands for scratching the body ; with snails used for exploring the way in advance - these fleshy, as those of the horned snake ; these creatures sometimes have one horn, snails always two, so as both to be stretched forward and to spring back.
[126] The northern barbarians use the horns of the aurochs for drinking, and fill the two horns of a single head with wine ; others point their spears with horn tips. With us horn is cut into transparent plates to give a wider diffusion to a light enclosed in it, and it is also applied to many other articles of luxury, sometimes dyed, sometimes painted, sometimes what is called from a certain kind of picture 'engraved.' [127] All animals' horns are hollow and solid solely at the tip, but only stags have horns that are entirely solid and that are shed every year. Farmers heal the hooves of their oxen when worn by greasing the horn of the hoof with fat ; and the substance of horn is so ductile that even the horns of living cattle can be bent with boiling wax, and they can be slit at birth and twisted in opposite directions, so as to produce four horns on one head.
[128] The females usually have thinner horns, as is the case with many in the cattle class, but the females of sheep and of stags have none, nor have those of the animals with cloven hooves, nor any of those with solid hooves except the Indian ass that is armed with a single horn. Nature has bestowed two horns on the kinds with cloven hooves, but on no kind having front teeth in the upper jaw: but those who think that the material to form upper teeth is entirely used up in horns are easily refuted by the nature of does, which have no teeth that stags have not also and nevertheless have no horns. The horns of all other kinds are attached to the bones, but those of stags alone grow out of the hide.
{46.} L [129] The heads of fishes are very large in proportion to their bodies, perhaps so as to enable them to dive. The shell-fish kind have no heads, nor have sponges nor virtually any of the other creatures which only possess the sense of touch. Some kinds, for instance crabs, have the head not separated from the body.
{47.} L [130] Of all the animals man has most hair on the head : indeed this is the case indiscriminately with males and females, at all events with the races that do not cut the hair ; and the Capillati {"Longhair"} tribes of the Alps and Gallia Comata have actually derived their names from this, though nevertheless there is in this respect some difference between countries : in fact the people of Myconos are born devoid of hair, like the persons with an affection of the spleen at Caunus. (Also some kinds of animals are bald by nature, for instance ostriches and cormorants; the Greek name for the latter is derived from this peculiarity.) [131] With these races loss of the hair is rare in the case of a woman and unknown in eunuchs, and never occurs in any case before sexual intercourse has taken place ; and they are never bald below the brainpan or the crown of the head, or round the temples and the ears. Man is the only species in which baldness occurs, except in cases of animals born without hair, and only with human beings and horses does the hair turn grey, in the former case always starting at the forehead and only afterwards at the back of the head.
{48.} L [132] In human beings only a double-crowned skull occurs in some cases. The bones of the human skull are flat and thin and have no marrow ; they are constructed with interlockings serrated like the teeth of a comb. When broken they cannot form again, but the removal of a moderate piece is not fatal, as its place is taken by a scar of flesh. The skull of the bear is the weakest and that of the parrot the hardest, as we have stated in the proper place { 8.130 }.
{49.} L [133] All blooded animals have a brain, and so also have the sea-creatures that we have designated the soft species, although they are bloodless, for instance the polypus. Man however has the largest brain in proportion to his size and the most moist one, and it is the coldest of all his organs ; it is wrapped in two membranes above and below, the fracture of either of which is fatal. For the rest a man's brain is larger than a woman's. [134] With all human beings it has no blood or veins, and in some cases no fat. The learned teach that it is distinct from marrow because boiling makes it hard. In the middle of the brain of all species there are tiny little bones. With man alone the brain throbs in infancy, and does not become firm before the child first begins to talk. [135] The brain is the highest of the organs in position, and it is protected by the vault of the head ; it has no flesh or blood or refuse. It is the citadel of sense-perception, and the focus to which all the flow of the veins converges from the heart and at which it stops ; it is the crowning pinnacle, the seat of government of the mind. But the brain of all animals slopes forward, because our senses also stretch in front of us. It is the source of sleep and the cause of drowsy nodding ; species without a brain do not sleep.
Stags are stated to have maggots to the number of twenty in the head beneath the hollow of the tongue and in the neighbourhood of the juncture of the head with the neck.
{50.} L [136] Only man is unable to move the ears. (The family surname Flaccus {"Flabby"} comes from them.) Also women spend more money on their ears, in pearl earrings, than on any other part of their person; in the East indeed it is considered becoming even for men to wear gold in that place. Some animals have larger and others smaller ears ; only stags have cleft and as it were divided ears ; the shrew-mouse has shaggy ears ; but all species, at all events viviparous ones, have some ears, except the seal and dolphin, and those which we have designated cartilaginous, and vipers : [137] these have only holes in place of ears, except the cartilaginous species and the dolphin, although the latter is obviously able to hear ; for dolphins are charmed even by music, and are caught while bewildered by the sound. Their precise method of hearing is a riddle. They also have no indications of smell, although they possess a very keen scent. Of feathered creatures only the eagle-owl and eared owl have feathers that serve as ears, the rest have apertures for hearing ; and similarly with the scaly creatures and with snakes. In horses and every kind of cattle the ears display signs of their feelings, drooping when they are tired, twitching when they are frightened, pricked up when they are angry and relaxed when they are sick.
{51.} L [138] Only man has a face, all other animals have a muzzle or beak. Others also have a brow, but only with man is it an indication of sorrow and gaiety, mercy and severity. The eyebrows in man can be moved in agreement with it, either both together or alternately, and in them a portion of the mind is situated : with them we indicate assent and dissent, they are our chief means of displaying contempt; pride has its place of generation elsewhere, but here is its abode : it is born in the heart, but it rises to the eyebrows and hangs suspended there - having found no position in the body at once loftier and steeper where it could be sole occupant.
{52.} L [139] Beneath the brows lie the eyes, the most precious part of the body and the one that distinguishes life from death by the use it makes of daylight. Not all animals have these organs : oysters have no eyes, and some of the shellfish doubtful ones, as scallops, if somebody moves his fingers towards them when they are open, shut up as though seeing them, and razor-shells hurry away from iron hooks brought near them. Of four-footed creatures moles have no sight, although they possess the semblance of eyes if one draws off the covering membrane. [140] And among birds the variety of the heron class called in Greek white herons are said to lack one eye, and to be a very good omen when they fly North or South, as they tell that dangers and alarms are being dissipated. Nigidius says that also locusts and cicadas have no eyes. For snails their pair of horns fill the place of eyes by feeling in front of them. Earth-worms also and worms in general have no eyes.
{53.} L [141] Man alone has eyes of various colours, whereas with all other creatures the eyes of each member of a species are alike. Some horses too have grey eyes ; but in man the eyes are of extremely numerous variety and difference - larger than the average, medium, small ; prominent, which are thought to be dimmer, or deep-set, which are thought to see most clearly, as are those with the colour of goats' eyes.
{54.} L [142] Moreover some people have long sight but others can only see things brought close to them. The sight of many depends on the brilliance of the sun, and they cannot see clearly on a cloudy day or after sunset ; others have dimmer sight in the day time but are exceptionally keen-sighted at night. We have already said enough { 7.16 } about double pupils, or persons who have the evil eye. Blue-grey eyes see more clearly in the dark. [143] It is stated that Tiberius Caesar alone of all mankind was so constituted that if he woke up in the night for a short time he could see everything just as in bright daylight, although darkness gradually closed over him. The deified Augustus had grey eyes like those of horses, the whites being larger than usual in a human being, on account of which he used to be angry if people watched his eyes too closely ; [144] Claudius Caesar's eyes were frequently bloodshot and had a fleshy gleam at the corners ; the Emperor Gaius had staring eyes ; Nero's eyes were dull of sight except when he screwed them up to look at objects brought close to them. In the training-school of the Emperor Gaius there were 20,000 gladiators, among whom there were only two that did not blink when faced by some threat of danger and were consequently unconquerable : so difficult it is for a human being to stare steadily, whereas for most people it is natural to keep on blinking, and these are traditionally supposed to be more cowardly. [145] Nobody has eyes of only one colour : with everyone the general surface is white but there is a different colour in the middle. No other part of the body supplies greater indications of the mind - this is so with all animals alike, but specially with man - that is, indications of self-restraint, mercy, pity, hatred, love, sorrow, joy. The eyes are also very varied in their look - fierce, stern, sparkling, sedate, leering, askance, downcast, kindly : in fact the eyes are the abode of the mind. They glow, stare, moisten, wink; [146] from them flows the tear of compassion, when we kiss them we seem to reach the mind itself, they are the source of tears and of the stream that bedews the cheek. What is the nature of this moisture that at a moment of sorrow flows so copiously and so promptly ? Or where is it in the remaining time ? In point of fact it is the mind that is the real instrument of sight and of observation ; the eyes act as a sort of vessel receiving and transmitting the visible portion of the consciousness. This explains why deep thought blinds the eyes by withdrawing the vision inward, and why when the mind is clouded during an attack of epilepsy the eyes though open discern nothing. [147] Moreover hares sleep with the eyes wide open, and so do many human beings while in the condition which the Greeks term 'corybantic.'
Nature has constructed them with thin and multiple membranes, and with outside wrappers that are callous against cold and heat, which she repeatedly cleanses with moisture from the tear-glands, and she has made the eyes slippery against objects that encounter them, and mobile. {55.} L [148] The horny skin in the centre of the eye nature has furnished with the pupil as a window, the narrow opening of which does not allow the gaze to roam uncertain, but so to speak canalises its direction, and easily averts objects that encounter it on the way ; the pupil is surrounded with circles which with some people are coloured black, with others grey and with others blue, so that the light from the surrounding radiance both may be received in a suitable blend and having its reflexion moderated may not be jarring; and the efficacy of the mirror is made so perfect by these means that the small pupil can reflect the entire image of a human being. This is the reason why commonly birds when released from men's hands go first of all for their eyes, because they see their own likeness reflected in them and try to reach as it were a desired object that is akin to themselves. [149] Beasts of burden only experience diseases at certain phases of the moon. Man alone is cured of blindness by the emission of fluid from the eye. Many have had their sight restored after 20 years of blindness ; some have been blind at birth owing to no defect in the eyes ; similarly, many have suddenly lost their sight without any previous injury. The most learned authorities state that the eyes are connected with the brain by a vein ; for my own part I am inclined to believe that they are also thus connected wth the stomach : it is unquestionable that a man never has an eye knocked out without vomiting. [150] There is a solemn ritual custom among Roman citizens to close the eyes of the dying and to open them again on the funeral pyre, custom having established that it is not right for the eyes to be seen by a human being at the last moment and also wrong for them not to be displayed to the heavens. Man is the only animal whose eyes are liable to distortion, which is the origin of the family names Strabo {"Squint-eye"} and Paetus {"Blinky"}. From the eyes also came the name of Cocles {"One-eye"} that used to be given to persons born blind in one eye, and that of Ocella {"Eyelet"} given to persons both of whose eyes were small; the Luscinus {"One-eye"} family received the name of an injury done to one of them. [151] The eyes of night-roaming animals like cats shine and flash in the dark so that one cannot look at them, and those of the wild-goat and the wolf gleam and shoot out light ; the eyes of the sea-calf and of the hyena change frequently into a thousand colours ; moreover those of many fishes shine out even in the dark, like oak-tree stumps when dry and rotten with age. We have stated that creatures that do not direct their gaze by slanting the eyes but by turning the head round do not wink. [152] It is reported that the chameleon's eyes turn themselves entirely round. Crabs look sideways, having their eyes enclosed in a fragile shell. Lobsters and shrimps mostly have very hard eyes projecting under a protection of the same kind. Creatures with hard eyes have less keen sight than those whose eyes are moist. It is stated that if one removes the eyes of young snakes and swallow chicks, they grow again. [153] The eyes of all insects and of creatures with a covering of shell move like the ears of quadrupeds. Those with fragile coverings have hard eyes. All such creatures, and also fish and insects, have no eyelids and do not close their eyes ; withal the eye is covered with a membrane that is transparent like glass.
{56.} L [154] Human beings have eyelashes on both eyelids. Women actually have them dyed every day : such is their desire to achieve beauty that they colour even their eyes ; but really the lashes were bestowed by nature for another purpose, as a sort of fence to the sight and a barrier projecting against insects meeting the eye, or other things accidentally falling into them. It is said that sexual excess causes them to drop off, not undeservedly. [155] None of the other species have them excepting those with hair on the rest of the body as well, but quadrupeds have them only on the upper lid, birds on the lower, as also do creatures with a soft skin, for instance snakes, and oviparous quadrupeds, for instance lizards. The ostrich is the only bird with lashes on both eyelids like a human being.
{57.} L [156] Not all species have eyelids either, and also only viviparous creatures can wink. The heavier birds close the eye with the lower lid, and also wink with a skin that covers the eye from the corner. Pigeons and similar birds close the eyes with both lids. But oviparous quadrupeds, such as tortoises and crocodiles, do so only with the lower lid, without any winking because their eyes are extremely hard. [157] The old name for the edge of the upper eyelid was cilium ; hence our word for the brows. When the eyelid is cleft by a wound it does not grow together again, as is the case with a few other parts of the human body.
{58.} L Only man has cheeks below the eyes (the old word for the cheeks was 'genae', used in the Twelve Tables in the prohibition of women's lacerating them). The cheeks are the seat of modesty : on them a blush is most visible.
{59.} L [158] The face between the cheek-bones displays merriment and laughter, and higher up, but in man only, stands the nose, which modern fashion has made the organ of sly mockery. No other animal has projecting nostrils, birds, snakes and fishes only having apertures for smelling, without nostrils and this is the origin of the surnames Simus {"Snubby"} and Silo {"Pug"}. Seven-month children have frequently been born lacking the apertures of the ears and nostrils.
{60.} L [159] The viviparous species have lips - whence the surnames Brocchus {"Lippy"} and Labeo {"Blubber-lips"} - and a well-shaped or rather harsh mouth. Instead of lips birds have pointed beaks of horn, which are hooked in birds of prey, straight in those that live by pecking, and broad in those that dig up grass and mud, like the snouts of the swine class. Cattle use their mouths instead of a hand for gathering fodder. Beasts that live by tearing up their prey have mouths that open wider.
No creature but man has a chin, any more than cheeks. The crocodile moves only the upper jaw; four-footed land animals open the mouth in the same way as all other creatures and in addition move the lower jaw sideways.
{61.} L [160] There are three kinds of teeth - serrated or continuous or projecting: serrated teeth closing together like the teeth of a comb, so as not to be worn away by direct collision, as in snakes, fishes and dogs ; continuous, as in man and the horse ; projecting, as in the boar, hippopotamus and elephant. Of continuous teeth those that separate the food (incisors), are called the broad or sharp teeth, those that masticate it double teeth, and those between these dog-teeth. [161] The latter are longest in creatures with serrated teeth. Continuous teeth are either in both jaws, as with the horse, or else there are no front teeth in the upper jaw, as with oxen and sheep and all the ruminants. The goat has no upper teeth except the pair in front. Species having serrated teeth have no projecting teeth, and a female rarely has them, and when she has them does not use them ; consequently though boars gore, sows bite. [162] No species with horns has projecting teeth, but all have curved ones ; all the other species have solid teeth. All kinds of fish have serrated teeth except the parrot-fish - this is the only aquatic species that has level teeth. Many of them however have teeth on the tongue and all over the mouth, so as to soften by means of a multiplicity of wounds objects that they are unable to reduce by mastication. Many also have teeth on the palate [and also on the tail,] and also turned further into the mouth, so as to prevent morsels of food from falling out, as they have no apparatus for retaining it.
{62.} L [163] The asp and serpent have similar teeth, but two extremely long ones on the right and left side of the upper jaw, perforated by a slender tube like the stings of the scorpion, which inject poison. The most accurate authorities write that this poison is nothing else than the serpents' gall, and that veins pass from the gall-bladder under the spine to the mouth ; certain writers say that it is only one tooth, and that as it is hooked it is sloped backward when it has inflicted a bite ; some authorities state that it then falls out and afterwards grows again, as it is very easy to dislodge, and that the snakes that we see handled lack this tooth ; [164] and that the scorpion has this tooth in its tail - as according to most authorities it has three. The vipers' teeth are concealed in its gum. Their gum is charged with the same poison, and when squeezed by the pressure of the teeth pours out its venom into the bites inflicted. No winged creature except the bat has teeth. The camel is the only animal without horns that has not got front teeth in the upper jaw. No horned animal has serrated teeth. Even snails have teeth ; this is proved by the fact that even the smallest of them gnaw vetches. [165] But I wonder what possible ground there is for the view that among marine species shell-fish and cartilaginous fish have front teeth, and also that sea-urchins have five. Insects have stings instead of teeth. The monkey has teeth like those of a human being. The elephant has four inner teeth for masticating, and besides these the prominent tusks that are bent backward in the male and slope straight downward in the female. The sea-mouse that swims in front of the whale has no teeth, but instead of them its mouth inside and also its tongue and palate are set with bristles. Of land animals very small quadrupeds have two extremely long front teeth in each jaw.
{63.} L [166] All the other animals are born with teeth, but man grows them six months after birth, All the rest keep their teeth permanently, but man, the lion, the beasts of burden, dogs and ruminant animals shed them ; with the lion and dog however this only applies to those called dog-teeth. The right dog-tooth of a wolf is held to be valuable as an amulet. No animal sheds its maxillary teeth, the ones next to the dog-teeth. In man those called wisdom-teeth grow latest, at about the age of twenty, and in many cases even at eighty, with females as well, but only in the case of persons who did not grow them in youth. [167] It is certain that in old age they fall out and then grow again. Mucianus has stated that he saw a Samothracian named Zocles who grew a new set of teeth when 140 years old. For the rest, males have more teeth than females in the case of man, ox, goat and pig. Timarchus son of Nicocles at Paphos had two rows of maxillaries ; his brother did not shed his front teeth, and consequently wore them down. There is a case of a person even growing a tooth in the palate. Any of the dog teeth lost by some accident never grow again. With all other species the teeth get red in old age, but in the horse alone they become whiter.
{64.} L [168] In beasts of burden the teeth are a sign of their age. A horse has forty teeth ; when two and-a-half years old it loses two front ones in each jaw, and in the following year the same number of the teeth next these, when they are replaced by those called grinders ; at the beginning of its fifth year it looses two teeth, which grow again in its sixth year ; in its seventh year it has all of its second teeth and also its permanent ones. [169] A horse previously gelt does not shed its teeth. The ass family likewise looses teeth when two-and-a-half years old, and again six months later ; those that have not foaled before they shed their last teeth are sure to be barren. Oxen change their teeth at the age of two. Pigs never shed theirs.
When this indication has come to an end, old age in horses and other beasts of burden is inferred from prominence of the teeth and greyness of the brows and hollows round them, when they are judged to be about sixteen years old.
[170] Human teeth contain a kind of poison, for they dim the brightness of a mirror when bared in front of it and also kill the fledglings of pigeons. The rest of the facts about the teeth have been told in the passage dealing with human reproduction { 7.68 }. Infants when cutting their teeth are specially liable to illnesses. The animals with serrated teeth have the severest pain in teething.
{65.} L [171] Not all species have tongues on the same plan. With snakes the tongue is extremely slender and three-forked, darting, black in colour, and if drawn out to full length extremely long ; with lizards it is cleft in two and hairy, and with seals also it is double ; but with the species above mentioned it is of the fineness of a hair. With the rest it is available for licking round the jaws, but with fish it adheres through a little less than its whole length, and with crocodiles the whole of it. [172] In aquatic species on the other hand the fleshy palate serves instead of the tongue in tasting. With lions, leopards, and all the species of that genus, even cats, the tongue is rough and corrugated like a file, and can scrape away the human skin by licking, which provokes even those that have been tamed to madness when their saliva gets through to the blood. We have spoken { 9.128 } of the tongues of the purple-fishes. [173] In frogs the tip of the tongue is attached but the inner part is loose from the throat ; it is with this that the males croak, at the time when they are called croakers ; this happens at a fixed season, when they are calling the females to mate. In this process they just drop the lower lip and take into the throat a moderate amount of water and let the tongue vibrate in it so as to make it undulate, and a croaking sound is forced out ; during this the curves of the cheeks are distended and become transparent, and the eyes stand out blazing with the exertion. Creatures with stings in their hinder part have teeth and a tongue as well, bees even a very long tongue, and cicadas also a projecting one; but those with a tubular sting in the mouth have neither tongue nor teeth. Some insects have a tongue inside the mouth, for instance ants ; moreover, the elephant's tongue also is particularly little visible. [174] With the rest of the animals according to their kind the tongue is always quite free, but with man alone it is often so tightly bound by veins that they have to be cut. We find it recorded that the pontifex Metellus was so tongue-tied that he is believed to have suffered torture for many months while practising the formula to be spoken in dedicating the Temple of Ops ; but in all other cases of stammering the patient usually contrives to speak distinctly after reaching the age of six. Many people on the other hand are endowed with such skill in using the tongue that they can give imitations of the cries of birds and animals that are indistinguishable from the real thing.
With all the other species the tip of the tongue is the seat of taste, but with man this is also situated in the palate.
{66.} L [175] Man has tonsils, the pig glands. Man alone has what is called the uvula hanging from the back of the palate between the tonsils. No oviparous species possesses the lesser tongue below the uvula. Its functions are twofold, placed as it is between two tubes. Of these the inner one called the windpipe stretches to the lungs and the heart ; [176] this the lesser tongue closes while food is being eaten, as breath and voice passes along it, lest if drink or food should pass into the wrong channel, it might cause pain. The other, the outer tube, is of course called the gullet, down which food and drink fall ; this leads to the stomach, and the stomach to the abdomen. This passage the lesser tongue occasionally closes, when only breath or voice is passing, so that an untimely rising of the stomach may not interfere. The windpipe consists of gristle and flesh, the gullet of sinew and flesh.
{67.} L [177] No species except those possessing both windpipe and gullet have a nape ; all the others, which have only a gullet, have a neck. But in those possessing a nape it is composed of a number of bones articulated in rings with jointed vertebrae, so as to be capable of bending to look round ; only in the lion and wolf and hyena is it a stiff structure of a single straight bone. [178] Moreover it is connected with the spine, and the spine with the loins, in a bony but rounded structure, the marrow passing down from the brain through the orifices in the vertebrae. It is inferred that the spinal cord is of the same substance as the brain for the reason that, if its extremely slender membrane is merely cut into, death follows immediately. Species with long legs also have long necks ; as also have aquatic species even though they have short legs, and similarly if they have hooked claws.
{68.} L [179] Man and swine alone suffer from swollen throat, usually due to bad drinking water. The top part of the gullet is called the pharynx and the bottom part the stomach. This name denotes the cavity attached to the spine below the fleshy part of the windpipe, bulging out lengthwise and breadthwise like a flagon. Species without a pharynx, for instance fishes, have no stomach either, and no neck nor throat, and the mouth is joined to the abdomen. [180] The sea tortoise has not got a tongue or teeth, but breaks up all its food with the point of its snout. Next comes the windpipe and the stomach, denticulated with ridges of thick skin like bramble-thorns for the purpose of grinding up the food, the interstices growing smaller in proportion as they are nearer to the abdomen : at the bottom it is as rough as a carpenter's rasp.
{69.} L [181] The heart with the other animals is in the middle of the chest, but in man alone it is below the left breast, with its conical end projecting forward. In fishes only it points towards the mouth. It is stated that at birth the heart is the first organ formed in the womb, and next the brain, just as the eyes develop latest, but that the eyes are the first to die and the heart the last. The heart is the warmest part. It has a definite beat and a motion of its own as if it were a second animal inside the animal ; it is wrapped with a very soft and firm covering of membrane, and protected by the wall of the ribs and chest, so that it may give birth to the principle cause and origin of life. [182] It provides the vital principle and the blood with their primary abodes inside it, in a winding recess which in large animals is three-fold and in all others without exception double ; this is the dwelling-place of the mind. From this source two large veins run apart to the front and the back of the body, and diffuse the blood of life through other smaller veins with a spreading system of branches to all the limbs. The heart alone is not tortured by the defects of the inner organs ; and it does not prolong the torments of life, and when wounded at once brings death. When the rest of the parts have been injured vitality continues in the heart.
{70.} L [183] The view is held that dull creatures are those whose heart is stiff and hard, bold ones those whose heart is small, and cowardly ones those in which it is specially large ; but it is largest in proportion to their size in mice, the hare, the ass, the stag, the leopard, weasels, hyenas, and all the species that are either timid or rendered dangerous by fear. Partridges in Paphlagonia have two hearts. Bones are occasionally found in the heart of horses and oxen. [184] The people of Egypt, who practise the custom of mummification, have a belief that the human heart grows larger every year and at the age of fifty reaches a weight of a quarter of an ounce, and from that point loses weight at the same rate ; and that consequently a man does not live beyond a hundred, owing to heart failure. [185] It is stated that some people are born with a hairy heart, and that they are exceptionally brave and resolute - an example being a Messenian named Aristomenes who killed three hundred Spartans. He himself when severely wounded and taken prisoner for the first time escaped through a cave from confinement in the quarries by following the routes by which foxes got in. He was again taken prisoner, but when his guards were fast asleep he rolled to the fire and burnt off his thongs, burning his body in the process. He was taken a third time, and the Spartans cut him open alive and his heart was found to be shaggy.
{71.} L [186] In victims whose organs are propitious there is a certain fatness on the top of the heart. But the heart was not always considered as one of the significant organs ; it was after the 126th Olympiad { 276-273 B.C. }, when Lucius Postumius Albinus, son of Lucius, was rex sacrorum, after King Pyrrhus had evacuated Italy, that the augurs began to inspect the heart among the organs. On the day when Caesar as dictator first went in procession dressed in purple and took his seat on a golden throne, when he performed a sacrifice the heart was lacking among the organs ; and this gave rise to much debate among the students of divination, as to whether the victim had been able to live without that organ or had lost it at the time. [187] It is stated that at the cremation of persons who have died of heart disease the heart cannot be burnt, and the same is said of persons that have been killed by poison ; undoubtedly there is extant a speech of Vitellius that employs this argument to prove Gnaeus Piso guilty of poisoning, and explicitly uses the evidence that it had been impossible to cremate the heart of Germanicus Caesar on account of poison. In reply Piso's defence was based on the nature of the disease.
{72.} L [188] Below the heart are situated the lungs, the breathing apparatus, drawing in and sending back the breath, and consequently spongy in substance and perforated with empty tubes. As has been said, few aquatic species possess lungs, and in the oviparous species they are small and contain froth, not blood; consequently these species do not experience thirst. The same cause makes it possible for frogs and seals to stay long under water. Also the lungs of the tortoise, although very large and spreading under the whole of its shell, are nevertheless devoid of blood. The speed of a creature's movement varies inversely with the size of its lungs. The chameleon's lungs are extremely large in proportion to its size, and it has no other internal organ.
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