:
Aristotle - On The Parts Of Animals
Atec Февраль 16 2008 20:01:06
Книга только для ознакомления
. For the
shell not only enables the soft parts to hold together, but also, as
the animal is bloodless and so has but little natural warmth,
surrounds it, as a chaufferette does the embers, and keeps in the
smouldering heat. Similar to this seems to be the arrangement in
another and distinct tribe of animals, namely the Tortoises, including
the Chelone and the several kinds of Emys. But in Insects and in
Cephalopods the plan is entirely different, there being moreover a
contrast between these two themselves. For in neither of these does
there appear to be any bony or earthy part, worthy of notice,
distinctly separated from the rest of the body. Thus in the
Cephalopods the main bulk of the body consists of a soft flesh-like
substance, or rather of a substance which is intermediate to flesh and
sinew, so as not to be so readily destructible as actual flesh. I call
this substance intermediate to flesh and sinew, because it is soft
like the former, while it admits of stretching like the latter. Its
cleavage, however, is such that it splits not longitudinally, like
sinew, but into circular segments, this being the most advantageous
condition, so far as strength is concerned. These animals have also
a part inside them corresponding to the spinous bones of fishes. For
instance, in the Cuttle-fishes there is what is known as the os
sepiae, and in the Calamaries there is the so-called gladius
: