The natural history and antiquities of Selborne : in the county of Southampton / by the Rev. Gilbert White ; the standard edition by E.T. Bennett ; thoroughly revised, with additional notes, by James Edmund Harting ; with ten letters not included in any other edition of the work ; illustrated with engravings by Thomas Bewick and others.
- Gilbert White
- Date:
- 1889
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The natural history and antiquities of Selborne : in the county of Southampton / by the Rev. Gilbert White ; the standard edition by E.T. Bennett ; thoroughly revised, with additional notes, by James Edmund Harting ; with ten letters not included in any other edition of the work ; illustrated with engravings by Thomas Bewick and others. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Mr. Ray observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked; for they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit air sujBBcient to serve them when they travelled, or laboured in that hot climate. And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses. Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some notion that stags have four spiracula. T'ETpa^vfim plysg, Tr'urvpEq TrroirjfTi hiavXoi. ' “ Quadi-ifidaB nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales.” 0pp. Cyn. lib. ii. 1. 181 Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary :—’AXy.pi.oc,(uiv yexp oJx aAr)9ti Xiyei, ^dp-ivoi; dvctTivUv ra'f ouyot(; xoiTix rx utx. Alcmseon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through their ears.”—History of Animals, Book I. chap, xi.^ Philosophical Journal” for October, 1835, says : “The passage of air through these cavities cannot take place, as they are perfectly im- pervious towards the nostril; but I have no doubt that the fact stated [by White] is correct; the air which escapes passing not through the infra-orbital sacs, but through the lachrymal passages, which are very large, consisting of two openings capable of admitting the end of a crow’s quill, the entrance to a tortuous canal, which conducts the tears to the extremity of the nose. Introducing a pipe into the outlet of the nasal duct, at the extremity of the nose, I can without difficulty force a current of air or water through the nasal duct [ Qucere, lachrymal sinus.— Ed.] and it therefore appears reasonable to admit that the effect observed [by White], arose from the animal forcing the air into the nostrils while the nose and mouth were immersed in water.”—Ed. * It is possible that this idea may have originated in the possession by the chamois of post-auditoiy sinuses; the openings of which behind the base of the ears may have been regarded as orifices for breathing, in the same manner as a similar function was erroneously ascribed to the suborbital sinuses. There is more reason in the supposition that the ears communicate with the nose, than that the suborbital sinus has any such communication; since in all animals that have a tympanic cavity opening upon the surface by an external passage, there is another conduit termed the Eustachian tube, leading inwards from the tympanum to the nose, the use of which is to regulate the pressure of the atmosphere upon the membrana tympani, and to convey superfluous moisture to the nose.—Ed.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24864006_0082.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
