Page - 1039 - in The Complete Aristotle

firm formations, mastoid or papillary in form; and similar formations are found in the cuttle-fish also, only that they are of a firmer consistency in the cuttle-fish. After the stomach comes an oesophagus, simple and long, extending to the poppy or quasi-liver, which is in the innermost recess of the shell. All these statements may be verified in the case of the purple murex and the ceryx by observation within the whorl of the shell. What comes next to the oesophagus is the gut; in fact, the gut is continuous with the oesophagus, and runs its whole length uncomplicated to the outlet of the residuum. The gut has its point of origin in the region of the coil of the mecon, or so-called ‘poppy’, and is wider hereabouts (for remember, the mecon is for the most part a sort of excretion in all testaceans); it then takes a bend and runs up again towards the fleshy part, and terminates by the side of the head, where the animal discharges its residuum; and this holds good in the case of all stromboid testaceans, whether terrestrial or marine. From the stomach there is drawn in a parallel direction with the oesophagus, in the larger snails, a long white duct enveloped in a membrane, resembling in colour the mastoid formations higher up; and in it are nicks or interruptions, as in the egg-mass of the crawfish, only, by the way, the duct of which we are treating is white and the egg-mass of the crawfish is red. This formation has no outlet nor duct, but is enveloped in a thin membrane with a narrow cavity in its interior. And from the gut downward extend black and rough formations, in close connexion, something like the formations in the tortoise, only not so black. Marine snails, also, have these formations, and the white ones, only that the formations are smaller in the smaller species. The non-spiral univalves and bivalves are in some respect similar in construction, and in some respects dissimilar, to the spiral testaceans. They all have a head and horns, and a mouth, and the organ resembling a tongue; but these organs, in the smaller species, are indiscernible owing to the minuteness of these animals, and some are indiscernible even in the larger species when dead, or when at rest and motionless. They all have the mecon, or poppy, but not all in the same place, nor of equal size, nor similarly open to observation; thus, the limpets have this organ deep down in the bottom of the shell, and the bivalves at the hinge connecting the two valves. They also have in all cases the hairy growths or beards, in a circular form, as in the scallops. And, with regard to the so-called ‘egg’, in those that have it, when they have it, it is situated in one of the semi-circles of the periphery, as is the case with the white formation in the snail; for this white formation in the snail corresponds to the so-called egg of which we are speaking. But all these organs, as has been stated, are distinctly traceable in the larger species, while in the small ones they are in some cases almost, and in others altogether, indiscernible. Hence they are most plainly visible in the large scallops; and these are the 1039