Notes, iv. 5. 227 



attempted to make out a similar condition in plants : " In all seeds there are two valves, 

 and the development starts from the centre, that is from the point where the valves unite, 

 a point which is common to the two sides. For thence grows the stem and thence 

 grows the root, and the principhim vita (A/'X'j) is between these two" (De Juvent. 3, i). 



60. The residuum of plants, that is their superfluous food, is, says A. elsewhere, 

 represented by their seeds. Cf. ii. 3, Note 8. 



61. Schneider, Strack, Camus, Frantzius, (cf. Meyer, Thierk. p. 165) all agree in 

 taking A.'s sea- nettles or Acalephse to mean exclusively the Actiniae or sea-anemones ; 

 and there can be no doubt that the description given here, as also the more detailed 

 one in the Hist. An. (iv. 6), is the description of an Actinia. At the same time I 

 cannot but think that A. also included some of the modem Acalephse in the same 

 group, confounding them with the sea-anemones and imagining them to be free-living 

 species of these latter (/T. A. v. 16, -i). For though the sea-anemones do in fact 

 possess urticating organs, yet their power of stinging is insufficient, unless in very 

 exceptional cases, to cause any irritation to the fingers, even when the skin has been 

 previously softened by soaking in water {Proc. Royal Soc. ix. 723). On the other hand 

 the power of stinging is such a prominent fact in the Medusae that their name in almost 

 all languages is founded upon it. 



62. That is their power of stinging which belongs "to all the surface of their bodies" 

 (^ A. ix. 37, 8). 



63. "Star-fishes are not unfrequently found feeding on shell-fish. In such cases they 

 enfold their prey within their arms, and seem to suck it out of its shell with their mouths, 

 pouting out the lobes of the stomach " (Forbes, Brit. Star-fishes, p. 86). The damage done 

 to oyster-beds by these animals has always been, and still is, a matter of complaint by 

 fishermen. " Bishop Sprat infonns us, in his history of the Royal Society, that great 

 penalties are laid by the Admiralty Court upon those engaged in the oyster-fishery who 

 do not tread under their feet or throw upon the shore a fish which they call a Five- 

 finger, resembling a spur-rowel, because that fish gets into the oysters when they gape 

 and sucks them out" {Todd^s Cycl. ii. 38). 



64. The mytis, which in cephalopods is traversed by the oesophagus, is the liver (cf. 

 Note 13), not the heart. The real heart of cephalopods, as of all other Invertebrata, 

 escaped Aristotle. 



65. Cf. iv. 2, 13. 



66. Cf Note 13. 



67. A. does not profess to have seen the heart of Mollusca, but only to say where it is 

 likely to be found on ^ /riijr/ grounds. Cf. Note 59. 



68. I suspect that the words " or the spermatic fluid " are an interpolation. For A. 

 {D. G. iii. II, 11) denied the existence of any generative secretions in bivalves. See 

 Introd. p. xxviii, foot-note 6. 



69. H. A. iv. 7. Cf. Note 9. The heart is represented in insects by the dorsal vessel. 

 A. failed to make it out, and concluded on purely a priori grounds that it was in the 

 middle of the body (cf. Note 59). 



70. A. elsewhere (ZT. A. iv. I, 6) speaks of Julus and Scolopendra as wingless insects ; 

 and (iv. 6, i) as having many feet. There can be no doubt that, speaking generally, 

 they correspond to our Myriapoda. But A. gives no accurate account of the differences 

 between Julus and Scolopendra ; so that we have no actual certainty that the two 

 divisions of Myriapoda to which these names are now given were those meant by him. 

 Probably, however, such was the case. As, however, A. divides (H. A. ii. 14, 2) the 

 Scolopendras into land species and water species, we must suppose that he confounded 



