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. For its very length would then
have prevented the animal from supplying itself with food, being as
great an impediment as the of certain oxen, that are said to be
obliged to walk backwards while they are grazing. It is therefore soft
and flexible, and, being such, is made, in addition to its own
proper functions, to serve the office of the fore-feet; nature in this
following her wonted plan of using one and the same part for several
purposes. For in polydactylous quadrupeds the fore-feet are intended
not merely to support the weight of the body, but to serve as hands.
But in elephants, though they must be reckoned polydactylous, as their
foot has neither cloven nor solid hoof, the fore-feet, owing to the
great size and weight of the body, are reduced to the condition of
mere supports; and indeed their slow motion and unfitness for
bending make them useless for any other purpose. A nostril, then, is
given to the elephant for respiration, as to every other animal that
has a lung, and is lengthened out and endowed with its power of
coiling because the animal has to remain for considerable periods of
time in the water, and is unable to pass thence to dry ground with any
rapidity. But as the feet are shorn of their full office, this same
part is also, as already said, made by nature to supply their place,
and give such help as otherwise would be rendered by them.
As to other sanguineous animals, the Birds, the Serpents, and the
Oviparous quadrupeds, in all of them there are the nostril-holes,
placed in front of the mouth; but in none are there any distinctly
formed nostrils, nothing in fact which can be called nostrils except
from a functional point of view
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