by Aristotle
Some animals have a gallbladder close to the liver, and others have not. Of viviparous quadrupeds the deer is without the organ, as also the roe, the horse, the mule, the ass, the seal, and some kinds of pigs. Of deer those that are called Achainae appear to have gall in their tail, but what is so called does resemble gall in [25] colour, though it is not so completely fluid, and the organ internally resembles a spleen.
However, all deer have maggots living inside the head, and the habitat of these creatures is in the hollow underneath the root of the tongue and in the neighbourhood of the vertebra to which the head is attached. These creatures are as large as [30] the largest grubs; they grow altogether in a cluster, and they are usually about twenty in number.10
Deer then, as has been observed, are without a gall-bladder; their gut, however, is so bitter that even hounds refuse to eat it unless the animal is [506b1] exceptionally fat. With the elephant also the liver is unfurnished with a gallbladder, but when the animal is cut in the region where the organ is found in animals furnished with it, there oozes out a fluid resembling gall, in greater or less quantities. Of animals that take in sea-water and are furnished with a lung, the [5] dolphin is unprovided with a gall-bladder. Birds and fishes all have the organ, as also oviparous quadrupeds, all to a greater or a lesser extent. But of fishes some have the organ close to the liver, as the dog-fishes, the sheat-fish, the angel-fish, the smooth skate, the torpedo, and the lanky fishes, the eel, the pipe-fish, and the hammer-headed shark. The callionymus, also, has the gall-bladder close to the [10] liver, and in no other fish does the organ attain so great a relative size. Other fishes have the organ close to the gut, attached to the liver by certain extremely fine ducts. The bonito has the gall-bladder stretched alongside the gut and equalling it in length, and often a double fold of it. Others have the organ in the region of the gut; [15] in some cases far off, in others near; as the fishing-frog, the elops, the synagris, the muraena, and the sword-fish. Often animals of the same genus show this diversity of position; as, for instance, some congers are found with the organ attached close to the liver, and others with it detached from and below it. The case is much the same with birds: that is, some have the gall-bladder close to the stomach, and others close [20] to the gut, as the pigeon, the raven, the quail, the swallow, and the sparrow; some have it near at once to the liver and to the stomach as the aegocephalus; others have it near at once to the liver and the gut, as the falcon and the kite.
16 · Again, all viviparous quadrupeds are furnished with kidneys and a [25] bladder. Of the ovipara that are not quadrupedal there is no instance of an animal, whether fish or bird, provided with these organs. Of the ovipara that are quadrupedal, the turtle alone is provided with these organs of a magnitude to correspond with the other organs of the animal. In the turtle the kidney resembles the same organ in the ox; that is to say, it looks like one single organ composed of a number of small ones. [The bison also resembles the ox in all its internal [30] parts.]11
17 · With all animals that are furnished with these parts, the parts are similarly situated, and with the exception of man, the heart is in the middle; in man, [507a1] however, as has been observed, the heart is placed a little to the left-hand side. In all animals the pointed end of the heart turns frontwards; only in fish it would at first sight seem otherwise, for the pointed end is turned not towards the breast, but towards the head and the mouth. And the apex is attached to a tube just where the [5] right and left gills meet together. There are other ducts extending from the heart to each of the gills, greater in the greater fish, lesser in the lesser; but in the large fishes the duct at the pointed end of the heart is a tube, white-coloured and exceedingly thick.
Fishes in some few cases have a gullet, as the conger and the eel; and in these [10] the organ is small.
In fishes that are furnished with an undivided liver, the organ lies entirely on the right side; where the liver is cloven from the root, the larger half of the organ is on the right side; for in some fishes the two parts are detached from one another, without any coalescence at the root, as is the case with the dog-fish. And there is [15] also a species of hare in what is named the Fig district, near Lake Bolbe, and elsewhere, which might be taken to have two livers owing to the length of the connecting ducts, similar to the structure in the lung of birds.
[20] The spleen in all cases is by nature on the left-hand side, and the kidneys also lie in the same position in all creatures that possess them. There have been known instances of quadrupeds under dissection, where the spleen was on the right hand and the liver on the left; but all such cases are regarded as monstrosities.
In all animals the wind-pipe extends to the lung, and the manner how, we shall [25] discuss hereafter; and the gullet, in all that have the organ, extends through the diaphragm into the stomach. For, as has been observed, most fishes have no gullet, but the stomach is united directly with the mouth, so that in some cases when big [30] fish are pursuing little ones, the stomach tumbles forward into the mouth.
All the afore-mentioned animals have a stomach, and one similarly situated, that is to say, situated directly under the midriff; and they have a gut connected therewith and closing at the outlet of the food at what is termed the rectum. However, animals present diversities in the structure of their stomachs. In the first place, of the viviparous quadrupeds, such of the horned animals as are not furnished [35] with teeth in both jaws are furnished with four such chambers. These animals are those that are said to chew the cud. In these animals the gullet extends from the [507b1] mouth downwards along the lung, from the midriff to the big stomach; and this stomach is rough inside and partitioned. And connected with it near to the entry of the gullet is what from its appearance is termed the hair-net; for outside it is like the [5] stomach, but inside it resembles a knotted hair-net; and the hair-net is a great deal smaller than the stomach. Connected with this is the many-plies, rough inside and laminated, and of about the same size as the hair-net. Next after this comes what is [10] called the abomasum, larger and longer than the many-plies, furnished inside with numerous folds, large and smooth. After all this comes the gut.
Such is the stomach of those quadrupeds that are horned and do not have teeth in both jaws; and these animals differ one from another in the shape and size of the parts, and in the fact of the gullet reaching the stomach centrally in some cases and [15] sideways in others. Animals that are furnished equally with teeth in both jaws have one stomach; as man, the pig, the dog, the bear, the lion, the wolf. The stoat has all its internal organs similar to the wolf’s.
All these, then have a single stomach, and after that the gut; but the stomach in some is comparatively large, as in the pig and bear, and the stomach of the pig [20] has a few smooth folds; others have a much smaller stomach, not much bigger than the gut, as the lion, the dog, and man. In the other animals the shape of the stomach varies in the direction of one or other of those already mentioned; that is, the stomach in some animals resembles that of the pig; in others that of the dog, alike [25] with the larger animals and the smaller ones. In all these animals diversities occur in regard to the size, the shape, the thickness or the thinness of the stomach, and also in regard to the place where the gullet opens into it.12
There is also a difference in the nature of the gut of the two groups of animals above mentioned (those which have teeth in both jaws and those which do not) in size, in thickness, and in foldings. [30]
The intestines in those animals which do not have teeth in both jaws are in all cases the larger, for the animals themselves are larger than those in the other category; for few of them are small, and no single one of the horned animals is very small. And some possess appendages to the gut, but no animal that does not have teeth in both jaws has a straight gut.
The elephant has a constricted gut, so that the animal appears to have four [35] stomachs; in it the food is found, but there is no distinct and separate receptacle. Its viscera resemble those of the pig, only that the liver is four t
imes the size of that of [508a1] the ox, and the other viscera in like proportion, while the spleen is comparatively small.
Much the same may be said of the stomach and the gut in oviparous quadrupeds, as in the land tortoise, the turtle, the lizard, both crocodiles, and in [5] fact, in all animals of the like kind; that is to say, their stomach is one and simple, resembling in some cases that of the pig and in other cases that of the dog.
The serpent genus is similar and in almost all respects furnished similarly to the lizards among oviparous land animals, if one were to increase their length and [10] remove their feet. That is to say, the serpent is coated with the tessellations, and resembles the lizard in its back and belly; but it has no testicles, but, like fishes, has two ducts converging into one, and an ovary long and bifurcate. The rest of its internal organs are identical with those of the lizard, except that, owing to the [15] narrowness and length of the animal, the viscera are correspondingly narrow and elongated, so that they are apt to escape recognition from the similarities in shape. Thus, the windpipe of the creature is exceptionally long, and the gullet is longer still, and the windpipe commences so close to the mouth that the tongue appears to [20] be underneath it; and the windpipe seems to project over the tongue, owing to the fact that the tongue draws back into a sheath and does not remain in its place as in other animals. The tongue, moreover, is thin and long and black, and can be protruded to a great distance. And both serpents and lizards have this altogether exceptional property in the tongue, that it is forked at the end, and this property is [25] the more marked in the serpent, for the tips of its tongue are as thin as hairs. The seal, also, has a split tongue.
The stomach of the serpent is more like a more spacious gut, resembling the stomach of the dog; then comes the gut, long, narrow, and single to the end. The [30] heart is situated close to the pharynx, small and kidney-shaped; and for this reason the organ might in some cases appear not to have the pointed end turned towards the breast. Then comes the lung, single, and articulated with a fibrous passage, very long, and quite detached from the heart. The liver is long and simple; the spleen is short and round: as in the case in both respects with the lizard. Its gall resembles that of the fish; the water-snakes have it beside the liver, and the other snakes have [508b1] it usually beside the gut. These creatures are all saw-toothed. Their ribs are as numerous as the days of the month; in other words, they are thirty in number.
Some affirm that the same phenomenon is observable with serpents as with [5] swallow-chicks: they say that if you prick out a serpent’s eyes they will grow again. And further, the tails of lizards and of serpents, if they be cut off, will grow again.13
With fishes the properties of the gut and stomach are similar; that is, they have [10] a stomach single and simple, but variable in shape. For in some cases the stomach is gut-shaped,14 as with the scarus—which appears to be the only fish that chews the cud. And the whole length of the gut is simple, and if it has a reduplication it loosens out again into a simple form.
An exceptional property in fishes and in birds for the most part is the being [15] furnished with gut-appendages. Birds have them low down and few in number. Fishes have them high up about the stomach, and sometimes numerous, as in the goby, the burbot,15 the perch, the scorpaena, the citharus, the red mullet, and the sparus; the grey mullet has several of them on one side of the belly, and on the other [20] side only one. Some fish possess these appendages but only in small numbers, as the hepatus and the glaucus; and they are few also in the dorado. These fishes differ also from one another, for in the dorado one individual has many and another few. Some fishes are entirely without the part, as the majority of the selachians. As for all the rest, some of them have a few and some a great many. And in all fish the [25] gut-appendages are found close up to the stomach.
In regard to their internal parts birds differ from other animals and from one another. Some birds, for instance, have a crop in front of the stomach, as the cock, the cushat, the pigeon, and the partridge; and the crop consists of a large hollow [30] skin, into which the food first enters and where it lies undigested. Just where the crop leaves the gullet it is somewhat narrow; by and by it broadens out but where it communicates with the stomach it narrows down again. The stomach in most birds is fleshy and hard, and inside is a strong skin which comes away from the fleshy part. Other birds have no crop, but instead of it a gullet wide and roomy, either all [509a1] the way or in the part leading to the stomach, as with the daw, the raven, and the carrion-crow. The quail also has the gullet widened out at the lower extremity, and in the aegocephalus and the owl the organ is slightly broader at the bottom. The duck, the goose, the gull, the catarrhactes, and the great bustard have the gullet [5] wide and roomy from one end to the other, and the same applies to a great many other birds. In some birds there is a portion of the stomach that resembles a crop, as in the kestrel. In the case of small birds like the swallow and the sparrow neither the gullet nor the crop is wide, but the stomach is long. Some few have neither a crop [10] nor a dilated gullet, but the latter is exceedingly long, as in long-necked birds, such as the porphyrio; and in the case of all these birds the excrement is unusually moist. The quail is exceptional in regard to these organs, as compared with other birds; for [15] it has a crop, and at the same time its gullet is wide and spacious in front of the stomach, and the crop is at some distance, relatively to its size, from the gullet at that part.
Further, in most birds, the gut is thin, and simple, when loosened out. The gut-appendages in birds, as has been observed, are few in number, and are not situated high up, as in fishes, but low down towards the extremity of the gut. Not all [20] birds have them, but most do such as the cock, the partridge, the duck, the night-raven, the localus,16 the ascalaphus, the goose, the swan, the great bustard, and the owl. Some of the little birds also have these appendages, but very small ones, as in the sparrow.
BOOK III
1 · Now that we have stated the magnitudes, the properties, and the relative differences of the other internal organs, it remains for us to treat of the organs that contribute to generation. These organs in the female are in all cases internal; in the [30] male they present numerous diversities.
In the blooded animals some males are altogether devoid of testicles, and some have the organ but situated internally; and of those males that have the organ internally situated, some have it close to the loin in the neighbourhood of the kidney [509b1] and others close to the belly. Other males have the organ situated externally. In the case of these last, the penis is in some cases attached to the belly, whilst in others it is loosely suspended, as is the case also with the testicles; and, in the cases where the penis is attached to the belly, the attachment varies accordingly as the animal urinates forwards or backwards.
No fish is furnished with testicles, nor any other creature that has gills, nor any serpent whatever: nor, in short, any animal devoid of feet, save such only as are [5] viviparous within themselves. Birds are furnished with testicles, but these are internally situated, close to the loin. The case is similar with oviparous quadrupeds, such as the lizard, the tortoise and the crocodile; and among the viviparous animals this peculiarity is found in the hedgehog. Others among those creatures that have the organ internally situated have it close to the belly, as in the case with the dolphin [10] amongst animals devoid of feet, and with the elephant among viviparous quadrupeds. In other cases these organs are externally conspicuous.
We have already alluded to the diversities observed in the attachment of these organs to the belly and the adjacent region: in some cases the testicles are connected closely at the back and do not hang free, as in the pig, and in others they are freely suspended, as in man. [15]
Fishes, then, are devoid of testicles, as has been stated, and serpents also. They are furnished, however, with two ducts connected with the midriff and running on to either side of the backbone, coalescing into a single duct above the outlet of the residuum, and by ‘above’ the outlet I m
ean the region near to the spine. These ducts [20] in the rutting season get filled with the genital fluid, and, if the ducts be squeezed, the sperm oozes out white in colour. As to the differences observed in male fishes of diverse species, the reader should consult the Anatomies, and the subject will be hereafter more accurately discussed when we describe the specific character in each case.
[25] The males of oviparous animals, whether biped or quadruped, are in all cases furnished with testicles close to the loin underneath the midriff. With some animals the organ is whitish, in others somewhat of a sallow hue; in all cases it is enveloped with minute and delicate veins. From each of the two testicles extends a duct, and, as in the case of fishes, the two ducts coalesce into one above the outlet of the [30] residuum. This constitutes the penis, which in the case of small ovipara is inconspicuous; but in the case of the larger ovipara, as in the goose and the like, the organ becomes quite visible just after copulation.
The ducts both in fishes and in these animals are attached to the loin under the stomach between the gut and the great vein, from which ducts extend, one to each of [510a1] the two testicles. And just as with fishes the genital fluid is found in the ducts, and the ducts become plainly visible at the rutting season and in some instances become invisible after the season is passed, so also is it with the testicles of birds; before copulation the organ is small in some birds and quite invisible in others, but during [5] copulation the organ is greatly enlarged. This phenomenon is remarkably illustrated in the ring-dove and the partridge, so much so that some people are actually of opinion that these birds are devoid of testicles in the winter-time.
Of male animals that have their testicles placed frontwards, some have them inside, close to the belly, as the dolphin; some have them outside, exposed to view, close to the lower extremity of the belly. These animals resemble one another thus [10] far in respect to this organ; but they differ from one another in the fact, that some of them have their testicles situated separately by themselves, while others, which have the organ situated externally, have them enveloped in what is termed the scrotum.1