Page - 1328 - in The Complete Aristotle

one of two ways; either before and behind or along the sides, the latter being the plan in such of them, for instance, as are bloodless and have numerous feet. But in the Cephalopoda there is a peculiar arrangement, different from either of these. For their feet are all placed at what may be called the fore end. The reason for this is that the hind part of their body has been drawn up close to the fore part, as is also the case in the turbinated Testacea. For the Testacea, while in some points they resemble the Crustacea, in others resemble the Cephalopoda. Their earthy matter is on the outside, and their fleshy substance within. So far they are like the Crustacea. But the general plan of their body is that of the Cephalopoda; and, though this is true in a certain degree of all the Testacea, it is more especially true of those turbinated species that have a spiral shell. Of this general plan, common to the two, we will speak presently. But let us first consider the case of quadrupeds and of man, where the arrangement is that of a straight line. Let A at the upper end of such a line be supposed to represent the mouth, then B the gullet, and C the stomach, and the intestine to run from this C to the excremental vent where D is inscribed. Such is the plan in sanguineous animals; and round this straight line as an axis are disposed the head and so-called trunk; the remaining parts, such as the anterior and posterior limbs, having been superadded by nature, merely to minister to these and for locomotion. In the Crustacea also and in Insects there is a tendency to a similar arrangement of the internal parts in a straight line; the distinction between these groups and the sanguineous animals depending on differences of the external organs which minister to locomotion. But the Cephalopoda and the turbinated Testacea have in common an arrangement which stands in contrast with this. For here the two extremities are brought together by a curve, as if one were to bend the straight line marked E until D came close to Such, then, is the disposition of the internal parts; and round these, in the Cephalopoda, is placed the sac (in the Poulps alone called a head), and, in the Testacea, the turbinate shell which corresponds to the sac. There is, in fact, only this difference between them, that the investing substance of the Cephalopoda is soft while the shell of the Testacea is hard, nature having surrounded their fleshy part with this hard coating as a protection because of their limited power of locomotion. In both classes, owing to this arrangement of the internal organs, the excrement is voided near the mouth; at a point below this orifice in the Cephalopoda, and in the Turbinata on one side of it. Such, then, is the explanation of the position of the feet in the Cephalopoda, and of the contrast they present to other animals in this matter. The arrangement, however, in the Sepias and the Calamaries is not precisely the same as in the Poulps, owing to the former having no other mode of progression than by swimming, while the latter not only swim but crawl. For 1328