Notes, iv. 13. 251 



the fact that the same false statement occurs elsewhere {H. A. viii. 2, 32). The same 

 ignorant transcriber who made the addition to the text in the one place may very 

 probably have made it in the other. Cf. Introd. pp. xii— xiii. 



29. This is, so far as I know, the only place where A. speaks of the structure of an 

 animal as intended for the advantage of other animals than itself. Elsewhere he always 

 speaks of the organs as given to animals to be of service to themselves. "Nature never 

 gives an organ to an animal except when it is able to make use of it." Even here he 

 considers the habit in question to be of use to its possessor, and only speaks doubtfully 

 of its being intended as a means of salvation to others. 



30. Sometimes A. speaks of all fishes as having this kind of dentition (cf. iii. I, 

 Note 7). Here he more correctly limits the statement considerably. 



31. Cf. Note 9. Rhine in Greek means " file." The skin of the monk-fish or angel- 

 fish is still used for polishing cabinwork, furnishing a fine sort of shagreen. 



32. Cf. H. A. ii. 13, 10, where the same statement is made, and certain Selachia, eels, 

 and tunnies mentioned as smooth fishes. The Selachian referred to is doubtless the 

 Mustelus Isevis, of which he speaks (Z>. G. iii. 3, 10) as the smooth galeus, and which 

 is still known as the smooth-hound from the comparative softness of its skin. In the 

 eels the scales are so deeply sunk in the skin as to be scarcely apparent, and the smooth 

 and slippery character of these fishes is proverbial. 



33. Cf. ii. 9, Notes 8, 9. 



34. That is to say they have no solid organs of the globular or ovoid shape which 

 characterises the testes of Mammalia, birds, and most reptiles. This is all that A. can mean ; 

 for he was perfectly aware that the milt was an organ from which the male fish secreted 

 sperm ; and he states, in opposition to those who held that there were no males among 

 osseous fishes, that the ova of the female fish come to nothing unless the male voids the 

 secretion of this milt upon them (Z). G. iii. I, 20; H. A. vi. 14, 6). He refuses however 

 to call these saccular organs " testes," because of their shape and of their being hollow, 

 and styles them spermatic tubes {jc6poC) or roe (OopiKck). He supposed {Z>. G. i. 4) that 

 these saccular spermatic tubes or roe, as also the elongated testes of serpents, corresponded 

 not to the solid globular or ovoid organs of birds, reptiles, and mammals, but to the 

 tubular vasa dejerentia ; and it was to these latter that he erroneously ascribed the seminal 

 secretion. The ovoid or globular bodies he thought were merely parts superadded, when 

 the secreting spermatic tubes became very long and complicated, for certain mechanical 

 purposes, which are set forth by him. His account of the seminal organs of fishes 

 seems to have been taken from osseous fishes ; for in the rays and sharks, that is to say 

 in his Selachia, the testes are compact oval bodies (cf. Huxley's Vert. p. 135). Even, 

 however, if A. had noticed this, it would not have led him to abandon his view, that such 

 bodies were merely mechanical additions, required when the ducts became very long and 

 complicated. For in these fishes the vas deferens is very much contorted and provided 

 with an epididymis. 



35. In the Ophidia the testes are excessively elongated and narrow, differing alto- 

 gether in form from the ovoid organs of such other reptiles as the Chelonia. The 

 form, however, is determined not by the absence of feet, but by the elongation of 

 the whole body ; a cause which elsewhere is cited by A. himself as an explanation of the 

 elongation of the internal organs. It must, however, be remembered that elongation of 

 the body and absence of limbs are according to A. correlated conditions (cf. iv. Ii, 

 Note 2). 



36. In birds, reptiles, amphibians, there is a cloaca, i.e. a common chamber into which 

 open the rectum and the genital organs, as also the urinary, though the latter escaped A.'s 



