Chap. 88.] THE NERVES. 77 



CHAP. 87. BONES AND EISH-BONES : ANIMALS WHICH HATE 



NEITHER. CARTILAGES. 



The bones are hard, also, in those animals 8 which do not 

 grow fat ; those of the ass are used by musicians for making 

 flutes. Dolphins have bones, and not ordinary fish-bones ; for 

 they are viviparous. Serpents, on the other hand, have bones 

 like those of fish. Among aquatic animals, the mollusks 

 have no bones, but the body is surrounded with circles of 

 flesh, as in the seepia and the cuttle-fish, for instance ; insects, 

 also, are said to be equally destitute of bones. Among aquatic 

 animals, those which are cartilaginous have marrow in the 

 vertebral column ; the sea-calf has cartilages, and no bones. 

 The ears also, and the nostrils in all animals, when remarkably 

 prominent, are made flexible by a remarkable provision of 

 Nature, in order that they may not be broken. When cartilage 

 is once broken, it will not unite ; nor will bone, when cut, grow 

 again, except in beasts of burden, between the hoof and the 

 pastern. 



Man increases in height till his twenty-first year, after 

 which he fills out ; but it is more particularly when he first 

 arrives at the age of puberty that he seems to have untied a 

 sort of knot in his existence, and this especially when he has 

 been overtaken by illness. 



CHAP. 88. THE NERVE : ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NONE. 



The nerves 9 take their rise at the heart, and even surround 

 it in the ox ; they have the same nature and principle as the 

 marrow. In all animals they are fastened to the lubricous 

 surface of the bones, and so serve to fasten those knots in the 

 body which are known as articulations or joints, sometimes 

 lying between them, sometimes surrounding "them, and some- 

 times, running from one to another; in one place they are 

 long and round, and in another broad, according as the ne- 

 cessity of each case may demand. "When cut, they will not 



8 The hare and the partridge, for instance. 



9 There is considerable doubt wbat the ancients exactly meant by the 

 "nervi ;" and whether, in fact, they had any definite idea of " nerves," in 

 our acceptation of the word. Pliny here expresses tbe opinions entertained 

 by Aristotle. " Tendons," or " sinews," would almost appear to be the proper 

 translation of the word. 



