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. (Seals also have
a forked tongue.) This it is which accounts for all these animals
being so fond of dainty food. The teeth in the four-footed Ovipara are
of the sharp interfitting kind, like the teeth of fishes. The organs
of all the senses are present and resemble those of other animals.
Thus there are nostrils for smell, eves for vision, and ears for
hearing. The latter organs, however, do not project from the sides
of the head, but consist simply of the duct, as also is the case in
birds. This is due in both cases to the hardness of the integument;
birds having their bodies covered with feathers, and these oviparous
quadrupeds with horny plates. These plates are equivalent to scales,
but of a harder character. This is manifest in tortoises and river
crocodiles, and also in the large serpents. For here the plates become
stronger than the bones, being seemingly of the same substance as
these.
These animals have no upper eyelid, but close the eye with the lower
lid In this they resemble birds, and the reason is the same as was
assigned in their case. Among birds there are some that can not only
thus close the eye, but can also blink by means of a membrane which
comes from its corner. But none of the oviparous quadrupeds blink; for
their eyes are harder than those of birds. The reason for this is that
keen vision and far-sightedness are of very considerable service to
birds, flying as they do in the air, whereas they would be of
comparatively small use to the oviparous quadrupeds, seeing that
they are all of troglodytic habits
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