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. For
seals, if looked on as water-animals, are yet found to have feet; and,
if looked on as land-animals, are yet found to have fins. For their
hind feet are exactly like the fins of fishes; and their teeth also
are sharp and interfitting as in fishes. Bats again, if regarded as
winged animals, have feet; and, if regarded as quadrupeds, are without
them. So also they have neither the tail of a quadruped nor the tail
of a bird; no quadruped's tail, because they are winted animals; no
bird's tail, because they are terrestrial. This absence of tail is the
result of necessity. For bats fly by means of a membrane, but no
animal, unless it has barbed feathers, has the tail of a bird; for a
bird's tail is composed of such feathers. As for a quadruped's tail,
it would be an actual impediment, if present among the feathers.
14
Much the same may be said also of the Libyan ostrich. For it has
some of the characters of a bird, some of the characters of a
quadruped. It differs from a quadruped in being feathered; and from
a bird in being unable to soar aloft and in having feathers that
resemble hair and are useless for flight. Again, it agrees with
quadrupeds in having upper eyelashes, which are the more richly
supplied with hairs because the parts about the head and the upper
portion of the neck are bare; and it agrees with birds in being
feathered in all the parts posterior to these
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