The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  All milk is composed of a watery serum called whey, and a consistent substance called curd; and the thicker the milk, the more abundant the curd. The milk, then, of non-ambidentals coagulates, and that is why cheese is made of the [30] milk of such animals under domestication; but the milk of ambidentals does not coagulate, nor their fat either, and the milk is thin and sweet. Now the camel’s milk is the thinnest, and that of the horse next after it, and that of the ass next again, but cow’s milk is the thickest. Milk does not coagulate under the influence of cold, but [522a1] rather runs to whey; but under the influence of heat it coagulates and thickens. As a general rule milk only comes to animals in pregnancy. When the animal is pregnant milk is found, but at first—and then again later—it is unfit for use. In the case of female animals not pregnant a small quantity of milk has been procured by the [5] employment of special food, and cases have been actually known where women advanced in years on being submitted to the process of milking have produced milk, and in some cases have produced it in sufficient quantities to enable them to suckle an infant.

  The people that live on and about Mount Oeta take such she-goats as decline the male and rub their udders hard with nettles to cause pain; hereupon they milk [10] the animals, procuring at first a liquid resembling blood, then a liquid mixed with purulent matter, and eventually milk, as freely as from females submitting to the male.

  As a general rule, milk is not found in the male of man or of any other animal, though from time to time it has been found in a male; for instance, once in Lemnos a [15] he-goat was milked by its dugs (for it has two dugs close to the penis), and was milked to such effect that cheese was made of the produce, and the same phenomenon was repeated in a male of its own begetting. Such occurrences, however, are regarded as portents, and in point of fact when the Lemnian owner of the animal inquired of the oracle, the god informed him that the portent foreshadowed the acquisition of a fortune. With some men, after puberty, a [20] little milk can be produced by squeezing the breasts; cases have been known where on their being subjected to a prolonged milking process a considerable quantity of milk has been educed.

  In milk there is a fatty element, which in clotted milk gets to resemble oil. Goat’s milk is mixed with sheep’s milk in Sicily, and wherever sheep’s milk is fat. The best milk for clotting is not only that where the curd is most abundant, but that also where it is driest. [25]

  Now some animals produce more than enough milk to rear their young, and this is useful for cheese-making and for storage. This is especially the case with the sheep and the goat, and next in degree with the cow. Mare’s milk and milk of the she-ass are mixed in with Phrygian cheese. And there is more curd in cow’s milk than in goat’s milk; for graziers tell us that from nine gallons of goat’s milk they can [30] get nineteen cheeses at an obol apiece, and from the same amount of cow’s milk, thirty. Other animals give only enough of milk to rear their young, and no superfluous amount and none fitted for cheese-making, as is the case with all animals that have more than two breasts; for with none of such animals is milk [522b1] produced in superabundance or used for the manufacture of cheese.

  The juice of the fig and rennet are employed to curdle milk. The fig-juice is first squeezed out into wool; the wool is then rinsed into a little milk, and if this be mixed with other milk it curdles it. Rennet is a kind of milk; for it is found in the [5] stomach of the animal while it is yet suckling.

  21 · Rennet then consists of milk with an admixture of fire,24 which comes from the natural heat of the animal, as the milk is concocted. All ruminating animals produce rennet, and, of ambidentals, the hare. Rennet improves in quality [10] the longer it is kept; and this sort, and also hare’s rennet, is good for diarrhoea, and the best of all rennet is that of the young deer.

  In milk-producing animals the comparative amount of the yield varies with the size of the animal and the diversities of pasturage. For instance, there are in Phasis [15] small cattle that in all cases give a copious supply of milk, and the large cows in Epirus yield each one daily some nine gallons of milk, and half of this from each pair of teats, and the milker has to stand erect, stooping forward a little, as otherwise, if he were seated, he would be unable to reach up to the teats. But, with the exception [20] of the ass, all the quadrupeds in Epirus are of large size, and the cattle and the dogs are the largest. Now large animals require abundant pasture, and this country supplies just such pasturage, and also supplies pasture grounds to suit the diverse seasons of the year. The cattle are particularly large, and likewise the sheep of the so-called Pyrrhic breed, the name being given in honour of King Pyrrhus. [25]

  Some pasture quenches milk, as lucerne, and that especially in ruminants; other feeding renders it copious, as cytisus and vetch; but cytisus in flower is not recommended, as it has burning properties, and vetch is not good for pregnant cattle, as it causes increased difficulty in parturition. However, beasts that can eat [30] plentifully, as they are benefited thereby in regard to pregnancy, so also being well nourished produce milk in plenty. Some of the plants that cause flatulence bring milk, as for instance, a large feed of beans with the ewe, the she-goat, the cow, and the young she-goat; for this feeding makes them drop their udders. And the pointing [523a1] of the udder to the ground before parturition is a sign of there being plenty of milk.

  Milk remains for a long time in the female, if she be kept from the male and be properly fed, and, of quadrupeds, this is especially true of the ewe; for the ewe can [5] be milked for eight months. As a general rule, ruminating animals give milk in abundance, and milk fitted for cheese manufacture. In the neighbourhood of Torone cows run dry for a few days before calving, and have milk all the rest of the time. In women, milk of a livid colour is better than white for nursing purposes; and [10] dark women give healthier milk than fair ones. Milk that is richest in curd is the most nutritious, but milk with a scanty supply of curd is the more wholesome for children.

  22 · All sanguineous animals eject sperm. As to what, and how, it contributes to generation, these questions will be discussed in another treatise. Taking the [15] size of his body into account, man emits more sperm than any other animal. In hairy-coated animals the sperm is sticky, but in other animals it is not so. It is white in all cases, and Herodotus is under a misapprehension when he states that the Aethiopians eject black sperm.25

  Sperm issues from the body white and consistent, if it be healthy, and after [20] quitting the body becomes thin and black. In frosty weather it does not coagulate, but gets exceedingly thin and watery both in colour and consistency; but it coagulates and thickens under the influence of heat. If it be long in the womb before issuing out, it comes more than usually thick; and sometimes it comes out dry and [25] compact. Fertile sperm sinks in water; infertile sperm dissolves away. There is no truth in what Ctesias has written about the sperm of the elephant.

  BOOK IV

  1 · We have now treated, in regard to blooded animals, of the parts they have in common and of the parts peculiar to this genus or that, both the uniform and the [523b1] non-uniform parts, both the external and the internal. We now proceed to treat of animals devoid of blood. These animals are divided into several genera.

  One genus consists of so-called molluscs: these are animals that, being devoid of blood, have flesh-like substance outside, and any hard structure they may happen to have, inside—in this respect resembling the red-blooded animals,—such as the genus of the cuttlefish.

  [5] Another genus is that of the crustaceans. These are animals that have their hard structure outside, and their soft or flesh-like substance inside, and the hard substance belonging to them has to be crushed rather than shattered; and to this genus belongs the crayfish and the crab.

  A third genus is that of the testaceans. These are animals that have their hard substance outside and their flesh-like substance within, and their hard substance [10] can be shattered but not crushed; and to this genus belong the snail and the oyster.

  The fourth genus is t
hat of insects; and this genus comprehends numerous and dissimilar species. Insects are creatures that, as the name implies, have nicks either on the belly or on the back, or on both belly and back, and have no one part [15] distinctly osseous and no one part distinctly fleshy, but are something intermediate between bone and flesh; that is to say, their body is hard all through, inside and outside. Some insects are wingless, such as the iulus and the centipede; some are winged, as the bee, the cockchafer, and the wasp; and the same genus is in some [20] cases both winged and wingless, as the ant and the glow-worm.

  In molluscs the external parts are as follows: in the first place, the so-called feet; secondly, and attached to these, the head; thirdly, the sac, containing the internal parts, and incorrectly designated by some writers the head; and, fourthly, [25] fins round about the sac. In all molluscs the head is found to be between the feet and the belly. All molluscs are furnished with eight feet, and in all cases these feet are severally furnished with a double row of suckers, with the exception of one single species of octopus. The cuttlefish, the small calamary and the large calamary have [30] an exceptional organ in a pair of long tentacles, having at their extremities a portion rendered rough by the presence of two rows of suckers; and with these they apprehend their food and draw it into their mouths, and in stormy weather they cling by them to a rock like anchors and ride out the storm. They swim by the aid of [524a1] the fins1 that they have about the sac. In all cases their feet are furnished with suckers.

  The octopus uses his feelers either as feet or hands; with the two which stand over his mouth he draws in food, and the last of his feelers he employs in the act of [5] copulation—it is extremely sharp, is exceptional as being of a whitish colour, and at its extremity is bifurcate (it is like that on the rachis, and by rachis is meant the smooth surface on the far side from the suckers).

  In front of the sac and over the feelers they have a hollow tube, by means of [10] which they discharge any sea-water that they may have taken into the sac of the body in the act of receiving food by the mouth. They can shift the tube from side to side, and by means of it they discharge their ink.

  Stretching out its feet, it swims obliquely in the direction of the so-called head, and by this mode of swimming it can see in front, for its eyes are at the top, and in [15] this attitude it has its mouth at the rear. The head, while the creature is alive, is hard, and looks as though it were inflated. It apprehends and retains objects by means of the under-surface of its arms, and the membrane in between its feet is kept at full tension; if the animal get on to the sand it can no longer retain its hold. [20]

  There is a difference between the octopus and the molluscs above mentioned: the sac of the octopus is small, and his feet are long, whereas in the others the sac is large and the feet short; so short, in fact, that they cannot walk on them. Compared [25] with one another, the calamary is long-shaped and the cuttlefish flat-shaped; and of the calamaries the so-called teuthus is much bigger than the teuthis; for teuthi have been found as much as five ells long. Some cuttlefish attain a length of two ells, and the feelers of the octopus are sometimes as long, or even longer. The species teuthus [30] is not a numerous one; the teuthus differs from the teuthis in shape; that is, the sharp extremity of the teuthus is broader and, further, the encircling fin goes all round the sac, whereas it is in part lacking in the teuthis; both animals are sea-creatures.

  In all cases the head comes after the feet, in the middle of the feet that are [524b1] called feelers. There is here situated a mouth, and two teeth in the mouth; and above these two large eyes, and between the eyes a small cartilage enclosing a small brain; and within the mouth it has a minute organ of a fleshy nature, and this it uses as a [5] tongue—for none of them has a tongue. Next after this, on the outside, is what looks like a sac; the flesh of which it is made is divisible, not in long straight strips, but in rings; and all molluscs have a cuticle around this flesh. Next after or at the back of [10] the mouth comes a long and narrow oesophagus, and close after that a crop, large and spherical, like that of a bird; then comes the stomach, like the fourth stomach in ruminants; and the shape of it resembles the spiral convolution in the trumpet-shell; from the stomach there goes back again, in the direction of the mouth, a thin gut, and the gut is thicker than the oesophagus.

  [15] Molluscs have no viscera, but they have what is called a mytis, and on it the ink-sac; in the cuttlefish this vessel is the largest, and this juice is most abundant. All molluscs, when frightened, discharge such a juice, but the discharge is most copious in the cuttlefish. The mytis, then, is situated under the mouth, and the oesophagus runs through it; and down below at the point to which the gut extends is [20] the ink-sac which is enveloped in one and the same membrane as the gut; and it discharges both the ink and the excreta by the same orifice. The animals have also certain hair-like growths in their bodies.

  In the cuttlefish, the teuthis, and the teuthus the hard parts are within, towards the back of the body; those parts are called in one the sepium, and in the other the [25] ‘sword’ They differ from one another; for the sepium is hard and flat, being a substance intermediate between bone and spine, with (in part) a crumbling, spongy texture, but in the teuthis the part is thin and somewhat gristly. These parts differ from one another in shape, as do also the sacs of the animals. The octopus has [30] nothing hard of this kind in its interior, but it has a gristly substance round the head, which, if the animal grows old, becomes hard.

  The females differ from the males. The males have a duct in under the oesophagus, extending from the brain to the lower portion of the sac, and there is an organ to which it attaches, resembling a breast; in the female there are two of these [525a1] organs, situated higher up; with both sexes there are underneath these organs certain red formations. The egg of the octopus is single, uneven on its surface, and of large size; the fluid substance within is all uniform in colour, smooth, and in colour [5] white; the mass of the egg is so great as to fill a vessel larger than the creature’s head. The cuttlefish has two sacs, and inside them a number of eggs, like white hailstones. For the disposition of these parts I must refer to my anatomical diagrams.

  The males of all these animals differ from the females and the difference is most marked in the cuttlefish; for the back of the sac, which is blacker than the [10] belly, is rougher in the male than in the female, and in the male the back is striped, and the rump is more sharply pointed.

  There are several species of the octopus. One keeps close to the surface, and is the largest of them all, and near the shore the size is larger than in deep water; and [15] there are others, small, variegated in colour, which are not articles of food. There are two others, one called the heledone, which differs in the length of its legs and in having one row of suckers—all the rest of the molluscs having two,—and the other called the bolitaina or the ozolis.

  There are two others found in shells. One of them is called by some the [20] nautilus or the pontilus (it is a sort of octopus);2 and the shell of this creature is something like a separate valve of a deep scallop-shell.3 This lives very often near to the shore, and is apt to be thrown up high and dry on the beach; and when its shell falls away it is caught or dies on the land. These polypods are small, and are shaped [25] like the bolitaina. There is another that is placed within a shell like a snail; it never comes out of the shell, but lives inside it like the snail, and from time to time protrudes its feelers.

  So much for molluscs.

  2 · With regard to the crustaceans, one species is that of the crayfish, and a [30] second, resembling the first, is that of the lobster; the lobster differing from the crayfish in having large claws, and in a few other respects as well. Another species is that of the carid, and another is that of the crab, and there are many kinds both of [525b1] carid and of crab.

  Of carids there are the prawns, the squillae, and the little kind, (the little kind do not develop into a larger kind).

  Of the crab, the varieties are indefinite and incalcula
ble. The largest of all crabs is one called maia, a second variety is the pagurus and the crab of [5] Heracleotis, and a third variety is the fresh-water crab; the other varieties are smaller in size and have no special designations. In Phoenicia there are found on the beach certain crabs that are called ‘horses’ from their running with such speed that it is difficult to overtake them; these crabs, when opened, are found empty, because of insufficiency of nutriment. [There is another variety, small like the crab, but [10] resembling in shape the lobster.]4

  All these animals, as has been stated, have their hard and shelly part outside, where the skin is in other animals, and the fleshy part inside; and the belly is more or less laminated, and the female here deposits her spawn.

  The crayfishes have five feet on either side, including the claws at the end; and [15] in like manner the crabs have ten feet in all, including the claws. Of the carids, the prawns have five feet on either side, which are sharp-pointed—those towards the [20] head; and five others on either side in the region of the belly, with their extremities flat; they are devoid of flaps on the under side, but on the back they resemble the crayfish. It is very different with the squilla; it has four front legs which are flat on either side, then three thin ones close behind on either side, and the rest of the body [25] is for the most part devoid of feet. Of all these animals the feet bend out obliquely, as is the case with insects; and the claws, where claws are found, turn inwards. The crayfish has a tail, and five fins on it; and the prawn has a tail and four fins; the squilla also has fins at the tail on either side. In the case of both the middle part of [30] the tail is spinous: only that in the squilla the part is flattened and in the prawn it is sharp-pointed. Of all animals of this genus the crab is the only one devoid of a rump; and, while the body of the carid and the crayfish is elongated, that of the crab is rotund.