Chapter XI.

1. First of all we will speak of the internal parts of sanguineous animals, for the greatest number of genera differ from other animals, some being sanguineous, others ex-sanguineous. The sanguineous genera are man, viviparous and oviparous quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and whales, and perhaps others that are anonymous, because they do not form a genus, but simply species amongst each other, as the serpent and the crocodile.

2. All viviparous quadrupeds have an œsophagus and trachea, situated as in man, and so have oviparous quadrupeds and birds, though there is some difference in the formation of these parts; all that breathe by inhaling and exhaling air have lungs, trachea, and œsophagus. The position of the œsophagus and trachea, though similar, is not the same, nor are the lungs alike in all, nor similar in position.

3. All sanguineous animals have a heart, and a division in the middle of the body, called a diaphragm. In small animals its smallness and thinness render it less apparent. The heart of the ox is peculiar; for there is a kind of ox, though not the whole genus, which has a bone in its heart, and there is also a bone in the heart of the horse.

4. Not all animals have lungs, fish and those with gills have no lungs. All sanguineous animals have a liver, generally a spleen also; but in oviparous animals that are not viviparous, the spleen is so small as nearly to escape notice, as in most birds, the pigeon, kite,[58] hawk,[59] and owl. The ægocephalus[60] has none at all. Oviparous quadrupeds are of the same nature, for they have a very small spleen, as the tortoise, emys,[61] phryne, lizard, crocodile, and frog.

5. Some animals have a gall upon the liver, others none. Among viviparous quadrupeds the stag[62] has none, nor the deer,[63] horse, mule, ass, seal, and some swine. The Achaïnian stag appears to have the gall in the tail; that which they call gall in these animals resembles it in colour, but it is not liquid like gall, but more like the spleen in its internal structure.

6. All, while they are alive, have worms[64] in the head; they are produced in the hollow part under the hypoglottis, and near the vertebræ, where the head is joined on. In size they resemble very large maggots; they are numerous, and continuous, in number not generally more than twenty. Stags, as I have observed, have no gall, but their intestines are so bitter that dogs will not eat them if the deer are fat.

7. The elephant also has a liver without a gall, but when the part where the gall is attached in other animals, is cut open, a quantity of fluid like bile, more or less abundant, runs out. Among those animals which inhale sea-water, and have lungs, the dolphin has no gall. All birds and fishes have galls, and all oviparous quadrupeds, to speak of them at once, have a gall, greater or less; but in some fishes it is placed upon the liver, as the galeodea, glanis, rine,[65] leiobatus,[66] narce, and in some long fish, as the eel, belone,[67] and zygæna;[68] and the callionymus[69] has a gall upon the liver, larger in proportion to its size than any other fish. Others have a gall upon the intestines, extending from the liver by several thin passages; the amia[70] has it stretched out upon the intestines, and equal to them in length, and many times folded upon it. Other fish have the gall upon the intestines, some at a greater, others at a less distance, as the batrachus, elops, synagris, muræna, xiphias.

8. And the same genus often appears to have the gall extended in both directions, as the conger, in some individuals it is turned towards the liver, in others suspended before the liver. The same structure is observed in birds, for some have the gall turned towards the stomach, and others towards the entrails, as the pigeon, crow, quail, swallow, sparrow; in others it is directed both towards the liver and the stomach, as the ægocephalus; in others, as the hawk and kite, it is directed towards the liver and the intestines.