90 iii. 14. • 



caecal dilatation. After this it again becomes narrower and con- 

 voluted.^'^ Then succeeds a straight portion which r.uns right on 

 to the vent; This vent is known as the fundament, and is in 

 some animals surrounded by fat, in others not so. All these 

 varying parts have been so contrived by nature as to harmonize 

 with the various operations that concern the food and the residue. 

 For, as the residue gets farther on and lower down, the space to 

 contain it becomes ampler. This is suited to the wants of those 

 animals that, owing either to their large size or to the heat of 

 their digestive cavities,^^ require more nutriment and consume 

 more fodder than the rest ; for it allows the food to remain 

 stationary and undergo conversion. 



Neither is it without a purpose that, just as a narrower gut 

 succeeds to the upper stomach, so also does the residual food, 

 when its goodness is thoroughly exhausted, pass from the colon 

 and the ample space of the lower stomach ^^ into a narrower 

 channel and into the spiral coil. For so nature can regulate 

 her expenditure and prevent the residual substances from being 

 discharged all at once.^^ 



Now in all such animals as it behoves to be more temperate ^^ 

 in the consumption of food than those we have been considering 

 the lower stomach presents no wide and roomy spaces, neither 

 is their gut ever straight, but hals numerous convolutions. For 

 amplitude of space causes desire for ample food, and straight-, 

 ness of the intestine causes quick return of appetite.^^ And thus 

 it is that all animals whose food receptacles are -either simple or 

 spacious are of gluttonous habits, the latter eating enormously 

 at a meal, the former making many meals at short intervals. 



Again, since the food in the upper stomach, having just been 

 swallowed, must of necessity' be quite fresh, while that which 

 has reached the lower* stomach must have had its. juices exhausted 

 and resemble dung, it follows of necessity that there must also 

 be some intermediate part, in which the change may be- effected, 

 and where the food will be neither perfectly fresh nor yet dung. 

 And thus it is that, in all such animals as we are now considering, 

 there is found <vhat is called the jejunum f^ which is a part of 

 the small » gut, of the gut, that is, which comes next to the 

 stomach. For this jejunum lies between the upper cavity which 

 contains the • yet unconcocted food and the lower cavity which 

 holds the residual matter, which by the time it has got here is 

 675 b. 



