ANIMAL MOTION. 191 



surface, and only now and then raising his head to look that 

 he is keeping the proper direction.&quot;* 



The camel, Aristotle says, has one knee in each leg and 

 not more, as some say, but it seems to have more because 

 its abdomen is girded or drawn up.t Aristotle seems to be 

 referring to a passage in Herodotus (iii. 103), where it is 

 stated that the camel has four knees in its hind legs. The 

 apparent presence of more than one knee in each leg is due 

 partly to the great length and high inclination of the 

 femoral bones, and partly to the great length of the cannon 

 bones, thus causing the knee and tarsal joints to be very 

 conspicuous. Aristotle does not appear to have been de 

 ceived by these structural features ; he states distinctly that 

 there is only one knee in each leg. The phrase rendered by 

 the words &quot; because its abdomen is girded or drawn up &quot; is, 

 in Schneider s Greek text, 3i TW vTroyrcuriv riis xoitiot?, and this 

 agrees with the texts of the Koyal Prussian Academy, 

 Camus, Syllburg, and Aldus Manutius. The word vmcrvctais 

 primarily means a sediment, and also a prop or support. 

 Several commentators, having concluded that the word does 

 not express Aristotle s meaning very well, have proposed 

 alterations of the text, and both Schneider and Wiegmann 

 were in favour of substituting y/roWaAcnj, a tightening up or 

 contraction. The word uTroarao-is is used in an obscure sense, 

 but the meaning of the passage is clear, and is forcibly 

 brought to the mind of anyone who looks at a living camel, 

 with its tightly drawn up abdomen and long legs. 



The difficulties of the passage just discussed are small 

 compared with those of the first part of the one in which 

 Aristotle attempts to describe the structure of the cloven 

 foot of a camel. This passage, in H. A. ii. c. 2, s. 6, presents 

 such difficulties that, in their interpretation of it, scarcely 

 any two translators agree. Part of the passage is as 

 follows : * l*M TOV o7ri&amp;lt;r$EV (juxpov Eax&amp;gt; ia &quot; rai (A*X,p l 7 

 , TO S&quot; E(4,&amp;lt;apoa$EV Ivwaiou (MHpov o&amp;lt;7ov axpi 

 ITT axpo&amp;gt; TETrapa, (&quot; from the back it is divided a 

 little as far as the second joint of the toes, but the front is 

 divided a little just about as far as the first joint of the toes, 

 four at the tip&quot;). Even with respect to essential parts of the 

 passage very different views have been expressed. Camus 

 and J. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire consider that it refers to 

 divisions of the hind and front parts of the foot, Schneider 



* Nat. Hist, of Ceylon, 1861, p. 121. f H. A. ii. c. 2, s. 5. 



