第32章

Hairs after being cut grow at the bottom but not at the top; if feathers be cut off, they grow neither at top nor bottom, but shed and fall out. Further, the bee's wing will not grow again after being plucked off, nor will the wing of any creature that has undivided wings. Neither will the sting grow again if the bee lose it, but the creature will die of the loss.

In all sanguineous animals membranes are found. And membrane resembles a thin close-textured skin, but its qualities are different, as it admits neither of cleavage nor of extension. Membrane envelops each one of the bones and each one of the viscera, both in the larger and the smaller animals; though in the smaller animals the membranes are indiscernible from their extreme tenuity and minuteness.

The largest of all the membranes are the two that surround the brain, and of these two the one that lines the bony skull is stronger and thicker than the one that envelops the brain; next in order of magnitude comes the membrane that encloses the heart. If membrane be bared and cut asunder it will not grow together again, and the bone thus stripped of its membrane mortifies.

The omentum or caul, by the way, is membrane. All sanguineous animals are furnished with this organ; but in some animals the organ is supplied with fat, and in others it is devoid of it. The omentum has both its starting-point and its attachment, with ambidental vivipara, in the centre of the stomach, where the stomach has a kind of suture; in non-ambidental vivipara it has its starting-point and attachment in the chief of the ruminating stomachs.

The bladder also is of the nature of membrane, but of membrane peculiar in kind, for it is extensile. The organ is not common to all animals, but, while it is found in all the vivipara, the tortoise is the only oviparous animal that is furnished therewithal.

The bladder, like ordinary membrane, if cut asunder will not grow together again, unless the section be just at the commencement of the urethra: except indeed in very rare cases, for instances of healing have been known to occur. After death, the organ passes no liquid excretion; but in life, in addition to the normal liquid excretion, it passes at times dry excretion also, which turns into stones in the case of sufferers from that malady. Indeed, instances have been known of concretions in the bladder so shaped as closely to resemble cockleshells.

Such are the properties, then, of vein, sinew and skin, of fibre and membrane, of hair, nail, claw and hoof, of horns, of teeth, of beak, of gristle, of bones, and of parts that are analogous to any of the parts here enumerated.

Flesh, and that which is by nature akin to it in sanguineous animals, is in all cases situated in between the skin and the bone, or the substance analogous to bone; for just as spine is a counterpart of bone, so is the flesh-like substance of animals that are constructed a spinous system the counterpart of the flesh of animals constructed on an osseous one.

Flesh can be divided asunder in any direction, not lengthwise only as is the case with sinew and vein. When animals are subjected to emaciation the flesh disappears, and the creatures become a mass of veins and fibres; when they are over fed, fat takes the place of flesh. Where the flesh is abundant in an animal, its veins are somewhat small and the blood abnormally red; the viscera also and the stomach are diminutive; whereas with animals whose veins are large the blood is somewhat black, the viscera and the stomach are large, and the flesh is somewhat scanty. And animals with small stomachs are disposed to take on flesh.

Again, fat and suet differ from one another. Suet is frangible in all directions and congeals if subjected to extreme cold, whereas fat can melt but cannot freeze or congeal; and soups made of the flesh of animals supplied with fat do not congeal or coagulate, as is found with horse-flesh and pork; but soups made from the flesh of animals supplied with suet do coagulate, as is seen with mutton and goat's flesh. Further, fat and suet differ as to their localities: for fat is found between the skin and flesh, but suet is found only at the limit of the fleshy parts. Also, in animals supplied with fat the omentum or caul is supplied with fat, and it is supplied with suet in animals supplied with suet. Moreover, ambidental animals are supplied with fat, and non-ambidentals with suet.

Of the viscera the liver in some animals becomes fatty, as, among fishes, is the case with the selachia, by the melting of whose livers an oil is manufactured. These cartilaginous fish themselves have no free fat at all in connexion with the flesh or with the stomach. The suet in fish is fatty, and does not solidify or congeal. All animals are furnished with fat, either intermingled with their flesh, or apart. Such as have no free or separate fat are less fat than others in stomach and omentum, as the eel; for it has only a scanty supply of suet about the omentum. Most animals take on fat in the belly, especially such animals as are little in motion.

The brains of animals supplied with fat are oily, as in the pig;of animals supplied with suet, parched and dry. But it is about the kidneys more than any other viscera that animals are inclined to take on fat; and the right kidney is always less supplied with fat than the left kidney, and, be the two kidneys ever so fat, there is always a space devoid of fat in between the two. Animals supplied with suet are specially apt to have it about the kidneys, and especially the sheep; for this animal is apt to die from its kidneys being entirely enveloped. Fat or suet about the kidney is superinduced by overfeeding, as is found at Leontini in Sicily; and consequently in this district they defer driving out sheep to pasture until the day is well on, with the view of limiting their food by curtailment of the hours of pasture.