Aristotle : On the parts of animals / translated, with introduction and notes by W. Ogle.
- Aristotle
- Date:
- 1882
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Aristotle : On the parts of animals / translated, with introduction and notes by W. Ogle. Source: Wellcome Collection.
279/316 page 231
![sanitary, educational, and other functions. A. has another term of comparison for such a body, viz. “the Delphian knife” {Polit. i. 2, 3), an implement apparently used for many distinct purposes in the sacrificial rite. 16. The anterior pair of legs are remarkably long in some insects {Kirby, Bridg. r. ii. 180) ; with what use it is difficult to say. Sometimes at any rate it seems to be a provision to enable the male to secure the female, the peculiarity being confined to, or most marked in, the former sex. The explanation given by A. can hardly be the correct one; for the anterior pair are not specially elongated in ants or bees, though these are insects that use their legs to dress themselves. 17. In such insects as are slow walkers all the legs are, as a rule, of much the same length ; in those that run quickly aU the legs are elongated, the hinder pair being the largest; in swimming insects, and still more in leapers, the hind legs are much longer than the rest. In fleas the difference is not so marked as in grasshoppers; nor do fleas jump, like the latter, exclusively from the hind legs, for, having placed one in a glass tube under a microscope, I have seen it hop with the anteiior legs. 18. Literally “resemble a rudder,” but I have slightly paraphrased the expression to render it intelligible to those who may not know how a Greek ship was steered. In place of a single rudder, as in a modern ship, there were usually two, one on either side of the stem, resembling large oars, and moved in the same way as the other oars. The size and position of these rudder-oars render, therefore, the comparison to the posterior legs of the locust or grasshopper a very apt one. The resemblance, moreover, extends to the functions. “Whoever,” says Kirby, “has seen any grasshopper take flight or leap from the ground will find that they stretch out their legs, and like certain birds use them as a rudder ” (Biidg. Treat, ii. 162). 19. Cf. iv. 12, Note lo. A.’s meaning is expressed more intelligibly elsewhere {H. A. iv. 7, 9), “In some jumping insects the hind legs are simply larger than the rest, while in others they resemble rudder-oars, being bent backwards like the [hind] legs of quadrupeds.” (Ch. 7.) 1. Cf. iv. S, Note 25. 2. Cf. ii. 10, Note 5. 3. Cf. iv. S, 22-41. 4. “Aristotle in his Hist, of Animals mentions more than once a shell-fish under the name of Solen in such expressive terms that we can scarcely doubt its identity with the razor-fish, in all probability the Solen marginatus. He states that it buries itself in the sand, perpendicularly, even to the depth of two feet, and can rise and sink in it, but does not leave its hole; that it does not spin a byssus like other Testacea; that it is alarmed by noise, and buries itself rapidly when frightened ; that the valves of the shell are connected together at both sides, and that their surface is smooth. Such an enumeration of characters indicates how carefully the great philosopher studied razor-fishes, and with what interest he watched their doings and chronicled their fears ” {Forbes and Hanley, Brit. Mollusca, i. 240). 5. The ordinary position of most living bivalves is not on their side but vertical, with the opening between the valves downwards. This probably led A. to the conclusion that the head, or what answered to it, was downwards, so as to take in food from below. As to roots of plants, cf. ii. 3, Note 10. 6. Cf. iv. 5, Note 48. (Ch. 8.) 1. The Cmstacea are called by A. Malacostraca, i.e. soft-shelled, or sometimes Scleroderma, i.e. hard-skinned, and are defined by him as bloodless animals that have their hard matter on the outside and their soft parts within; the hard part,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24864249_0279.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
