Page - 997 - in The Complete Aristotle

of the horned animals is very small. And some possess appendages (or caeca) to the gut, but no animal that has not incisors in both jaws has a straight gut. The elephant has a gut constricted into chambers, so constructed that the animal appears to have four 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 times the size of that of the ox, and the other viscera in like proportion, while the spleen is comparatively small. Much the same may be predicated of the properties of the stomach and the gut in oviparous quadrupeds, as in the land tortoise, the turtle, the lizard, both crocodiles, and, in 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 saurians among land animals, if one could only imagine these saurians to be increased in length and to be devoid of legs. That is to say, the serpent is coated with tessellated scutes, and resembles the saurian in its back and belly; only, by the way, 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 saurians, except that, owing to the 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 oesophagus is longer still, and the windpipe commences so close to the mouth that the tongue appears to 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 saurians have this altogether exceptional property in the tongue, that it is forked at the outer extremity, and this property is the more marked in the serpent, for the tips of his tongue are as thin as hairs. The seal, also, by the way, has a split tongue. The stomach of the serpent is like a more spacious gut, resembling the stomach of the dog; then comes the gut, long, narrow, and single to the end. The 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 membranous passage, very long, and quite detached from the heart. The liver is long and simple; the spleen is short and round: as is the case in both respects with the saurians. Its gall resembles that of the fish; the water-snakes have it beside the liver, and the other snakes have it usually beside the gut. 997