Aristotle's History of Animals / In Ten Books

by Aristotle

8. It has two teeth like the carabus, above these the long horns, much shorter and smoother than in the carabus; four others of the same form as these, but still shorter and smoother; and above these are placed its eyes, which are small and short, and not large like those of the carabus. The part above the eyes is acute and rough, as it were a forehead, and larger than in the carabus: on the whole, the head is sharper and the thorax much wider than in the carabus, and its whole body is more fleshy and soft: of its right feet, four are divided at the extremity, and four not divided.

9. The part called the neck is externally divided into five portions, the sixth and last division is wide and has five plates; in the inside are four rough plates, upon which the females deposit their ova. On the outside of each of these which have been mentioned, there is a short and straight spine, and the whole body, with the part called the thorax, is smooth, and not rough as in the carabus. On the outside of the large feet there are great spines. The female does not in any way differ from the male, for whether the male or female have larger claws, they are never both of them equal.

10. All these animals take in sea-water through their mouths; the carcini also exhale a small portion of that which they have taken in, and the carabi do this through the branchiform appendages, for the carabi have many branchiform appendages. All these animals have two teeth: the carabi have two front teeth, and then a fleshy mouth instead of a tongue, from this an œsophagus continued on to the stomach. And the carabi have a small œsophagus before the stomach, and from this a straight intestine is continued. In the caraboid animals and the carides, this is continued to the tail in a straight passage, by which they eject their excrements, and deposit their ova. In the carcini this is in the middle of the folded part, for the place wherein they deposit their ova is external in these also.

11. All the females also, besides the intestines, have a place for their ova, and the part called mytis[119] or mecon, which is greater or less, and the peculiar differences may be learned by studying the individual cases. The carabi, as I have observed, have two large and hollow teeth, in which there is a juice resembling the mytis, and, between the teeth, a piece of flesh resembling a tongue; from the mouth a short œsophagus extends to a membranous stomach; in the part of this nearest the mouth are three teeth, two opposite and one below.

12. And from the side of the stomach there is a simple intestine, which is of equal thickness throughout, reaching to the anus. All these parts belong to the carabi, carides, and carcini; and, besides these, the carabi have a passage suspended from the breast and reaching to the anus; in the female this performs the office of a uterus, in the male it contains the spermatic fluid. This passage is in the cavity of the flesh, so as to appear to be between portions of the flesh, for the intestine is toward the curved part, but the passage towards the cavity in the same way as in quadrupeds. In the male this part differs in nothing from the female, for both are smooth and white, and contain an ochreous fluid, and in both sexes it is appended to the breast.

13. The ova and spirals occupy the same position in the carides. The male is distinguished from the female by having in the flesh upon the breast two distinct white bodies, in colour and position like the tentacula of the sepia; these appendages are spiriform, like the mecon of the whelk; their origin is from the acetabula, which are placed under the last feet. These contain a red sanguineous flesh, which is smooth to the touch, and not like flesh. From the whelk-like appendage there is another spiral fold, about as thick as a thread, below which there are two sand-like bodies appended to the intestine, containing a seminal fluid. These are found in the male, but the female has ova of a red colour; these are joined to the abdomen, and on each side of the intestine to the fleshy part of the body, enclosed in a thin membrane. These are their internal and external parts.

Chapter III.

1. It happens that all the internal parts of sanguineous animals have names, for all these have the internal viscera; but the same parts of exsanguineous animals have no names, but both classes have in common the stomach, œsophagus, and intestines. I have before spoken of the carcini, and their legs and feet, and how many they have, and in what direction, and that, for the most part, they have the right claw larger and stronger than the left; I have also mentioned their eyes, and that most of them are able to see sideways. The mass of their body is undivided, and so is their head, and any other part.

2. In some the eyes are placed immediately below the upper part, and generally far apart; in some they are placed in the middle, and near together, as in the Heracleot carcini and the maia. The mouth is placed below the eyes, and contains two teeth, as in the carabus, but they are long and not round, and over these there are two coverings, between which are the appendages, which the carabus also possesses.

3. They receive water through their mouth, opening the opercula, and emit it again by the upper passage of the mouth, closing the opercula by which it entered; these are immediately beneath the eyes, and when they take in water they close the mouth with both opercula, and thus eject again the sea-water. Next to the teeth is a very short œsophagus, so that the mouth appears joined to the stomach, and from this proceeds a divided stomach, from the middle of which is a single thin intestine; this intestine ends externally beneath the folding of the extremity, as I said before. Between the opercula there is something resembling the appendages to the teeth of the carabi; within the abdomen is an ochreous chyme, and some small elongated white bodies, and other red ones scattered through it. The male differs from the female in length and width, and in the abdominal covering, for this is longer in the female, farther from the body, and more thick-set with appendages, as in the female carabi. The parts of the malacostraca are of this nature.