INTRODUCTION. Xlil 



Similarly would I explain another blunder already mentioned, namely, ^ 

 the statement which occurs in the Historia Animalium, that in certain 

 species of animals, namely men goats sheep and swine, the teeth are j jyjpf 

 more numerous in the males than in the females, a blunder which has i ' (j 

 been quoted, with others, by Mr. Lewes, as an instance of Aristotle's J^/fAW^ 

 carelessne ss^ in observation. That this statement is due to interpolation /v/i^tAA^ 

 or correction of the original manuscript I feel the more assured, because a 



in other passages, in the De Partibus, when the distinctions between ( 



males and females as regards their horns, teeth, and their offensive and 

 defensive weapons generally, are discussed/ no such erroneous state- 

 ment is to be found. It is said, and said correctly, that horns and 

 tusks are often larger in the male than in the female, and horns fre- 

 quently wanting in the latter when present in the former ; but as to 

 any difference in the number of the teeth, there is not a single word. 

 We can readily conceive how an incompetent editor, finding in the 

 manuscript a half legible passage relating to the teeth of male and 

 female animals, may have so filled up the gap as to convert a difference 

 of size into a difference of number." Some of the more striking blunders 

 in Aristotle's treatises, especially such as occur only in single instances, 

 may, I think, be fairly thus explained. As to others, we must remember ' 



that Aristotle, like every writer on a vast subject, had to rely in great j / 

 measure on the statements as to matters of facts "Iftflr ^y ^thprc and "* ^ 



this the more implicitly as the opportunities of verifying these state- 

 ments were but rare, neither menageries nor museums of anatomy 

 having as yet come into existence. 



There is indeed a tale that Alexander supplied Aristotle with animals 

 from all the countries into which his expeditions led him ; but this 

 story is so plainly fabulous that it might be passed over entirely without 

 notice, had it not received the sanction of the great Cuvier. " On voit 

 en effet," says he,' "par 1' exactitude avec laquelle Aristote d^crit 

 plusieurs animaux de I'lnde et de la Perse, qu'il a eu sous les yeux les 

 objets eux-memes." Five animals are mentioned* as examples of this 

 statement, the elephant, the camel, the hippelaphus, the hippardium, 

 the buffalo. As regards the first two of these, the description given 

 by Aristotle is fairly complete ; and inasmuch as these animals, being 

 tamed, would present no difficulty in transportation, it is not impossible 

 that Aristotle may actually have seen them. I can, however, find no 

 evidence that he had done so, there being nothing in the description 



» D. P. iii. r. 



" There are, it may be noted, some species in which the males have more teeth than the 

 females ; in the sense that teeth which are more or less highly developed in the males are, 

 if not absent, yet rudimentary in the females. The narwhal is a well-known instance, the 

 horse is another. 



3 Hist. d. Sc. Nat. i. 137. * Ibid. p. 154. 



