Aristotle's History of' Animals. 71 



their hands, and designates several species, some of which have 

 a tail, and others have none. He then passes to the oviparous 

 quadrupeds, gives the characters which are common to all, 

 speaks of the nature of tlieir teguments, and, on this occasion, 

 describes the crocodile of Egypt, remarks the hardness of its 

 scales, the length of its teeth, their form, the disposition of the 

 organ of hearing, and lastly describes the principal habits of 

 that animal. 



The classification which Aristotle proposes for birds is excel- 

 lent, with reference to the principal sections, and is precisely 

 that of Brisson. He shews the analogy between their wings 

 and the fore feet of quadrupeds. He then speaks of the form 

 of their feet, and the differences which are observed in them, of 

 their third eye-hd, and of the faculty which several of these ani- 

 mals, especially those which have a fleshy tongue, possess of pro- 

 nouncino- words. He remarks that no bird has at the same time 

 spurs and hooked claws. This is another of those general pro- 

 positions which one is surprised to find in the infancy of science. 



He at length arrives at the fishes ; and here he is truly admi- 

 rable, his knowledge being, on some points, superior to what we 

 possess at the present day. He makes known, in various parts 

 of his book, 117 fishes, although his object is not to enumerate 

 species, but only to present general views. Of the facts which 

 he relates, several are still considered as doubtful. New obser- 

 vations, however, have from time to time made known the ac- 

 curacy of some of his assertions, even of those which seemed the 

 least accurate. He says, for example, that a fish named phycis 

 makes a nest hke birds. This was long considered as a fable, 

 but M. Olivi has lately found a fish, named gou or gau {Gobiu^ 

 niger), which has similar habits. The male, at the period of 

 impregnation, digs a hole in the mud, surrounds it with fuci, 

 forming a nest of it, near which he meets the female, and from 

 which he does not stir until the eggs that have been deposited 

 in it are hatched *. 



Aristotle, in the part where he si^eaks of the sensations, takes 

 care to point out the animals which are destitute of some organ 

 of sense, or those in which these organs present certain peculiar 



• I'islics nests built of fuci have been observed in this country, as men- 

 tioned in a former number of this Journal. — Edit. 



