798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



existence of animals without knees is again supposed by this remark : 

 " Since the members are equal, inflection must be made in the knee, or 

 in some joint, if the animal that walks is destitute of knees." If 

 Aristotle had ever seen an elephant move, is it not probable that he 

 would have spoken more decidedly and correctly on these points? 

 But the most astonishing assertion is that " the elephant can not swim 

 on account of the weight of its body " ! 



Aristotle's account of the camel is, on the whole, graphic and cor- 

 rect ; he describes both the one-humped Arabian and the Bactrian 

 species. He mentions the walk of the camel, stating that it moves 

 with the hind-foot following the fore-foot on the same side. He twice 

 repeats the statement that the camel has no teeth in the upper jaw. 

 Doubtless he alludes to the front teeth ; but the camel has two incisors 

 in the upper jaw and two canines, so that Aristotle has not, as Cuvier 

 asserts, " perfectly described and characterized the two species of 

 camel." Among other strange notions held by Aristotle, apparently 

 without any misgivings, may be mentioned the lion having no cervical 

 vertebrae, but only one bone in the neck, its bones, which are small 

 and slight, being without marrow, except a little in the thigh and fore- 

 leg. In his work on " Parts of Animals," he joins wolves with lions 

 in having one neck-bone, and gives as a reason, "Nature saw that 

 these animals wanted the neck more for strength than for other pur- 

 poses." Aristotle's notions with respect to the skull are peculiar ; the 

 brain is placed beneath the sinciput, and the occiput is empty — an 

 error twice repeated. Women's skulls have only one suture, in the 

 form of a circle. He mentions as an extraordinary thing the fact of a 

 man's skull having once been seen without any suture, copying Herod- 

 otus in this, who says such a skull was found on the battle-field of 

 Platffia. The skull-sutures in aged persons are frequently obliterated. 

 Again, " The cranium of the dog consists of a single bone." He must 

 have got hold of an old specimen. Certain abnormal deposits of bone 

 which occasionally are found with diseased conditions of the heart in 

 some of the mammalia were considered as necessary organs in the 

 horse and some kind of oxen, " which on account of their large size 

 have a bony heart for the sake of support." The seal and some swine 

 are said to have no gall-bladder. The gall-bladder is by no means 

 constant in the mammalia, and Aristotle is correct in saying it is not 

 present in the elephant, stag, horse, ass, and mule. It is difiicult to 

 know what he means when he says that the Achainian stags appear 

 to have a gall in the tail ; we are quite in the dark as to what these 

 stags are. In another place he mentions a stag of the same kind, 

 which when captured was found to have a considerable quantity of 

 green ivy growing on its horns as on green wood. Buffon seems to 

 have thought this story possible. 



That Aristotle placed too much reliance on the marvelous and im- 

 possible animal lore current in his age is obvious. Speaking of the 



