SPIRACULA OF ANIMALS. 57 



Mr. Ray observed that at Malta, the owners slit up 

 the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked ; for 

 they, being naturally strait or small, did not admit 

 air sufficient to serve them when they travelled or 

 laboured in that hot climate. And we know that 

 grooms and gentlemen of the turf, think large nos- 

 trils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters, and run- 

 ning horses. 



Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, 

 seems to have had some notion that stags have four 

 spiracula : 



i pivtQ, TTiffvpeg Trvoiyffi diav\oi. 

 " Quadupartite nostrils, four respiratory passages." 



OPP. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181. 



Writers, copying from one another, make Aris- 

 totle say, that goats breathe at their ears, whereas 

 he asserts just the contrary : 'AX/CjucuW yap OVK 

 aXrjdrj \eygi, c^afjieyoQ avcnrveiv rag cuyac Kara ra wra. 

 " Alcmseon does not advance what is true, when he 

 avers that goats breathe through their ears." His- 

 tory of Animals, Book i. chap. xi. 



to find in the antelope something analogous to what you mention 

 as so remarkable in deer. This animal also has a long slit beneath 

 each eye, which can be opened and shut at pleasure. On holding 

 an orange to one, the creature made as much use of those orifices 

 as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming to smell 

 it through them." 



