BOOK XI. Lxxix. 202-Lxxx. 205 



directly from the abdomen right down the gut ; this 

 is the case with lynxes, and among birds cormorants. 

 The elephant has four " abdomens, but its other parts 

 resemble those of pigs ; its lungs are four times as 

 large as those of an ox. Birds have a fleshy and 

 hard abdomen. In the abdomen of swallow chicks 

 there are found white or red coloured pebbles, 

 called swallow-stones ; there are accounts of these 

 in the treatises on magic. Also in the second 

 abdomen of heifers is found a round ball * of blackish 

 tufa that weighs nothing; this is thought to be a 

 sovereign remedy for difficulty in child-birth if it has 

 never been allowed to touch the ground. 



LXXX. The abdomen and bowels except in the vhe spUen. 

 oviparous species are wrapped in a fat thin caul. 

 To this is attached the spleen on the left side opposite 

 the hver, with which it occasionally changes place, 

 but this constitutes a portent. Some think that 

 oviparous species contain a spleen, and also snakes 

 a rather small one ; this undoubtedly appears to be 

 so in the case of the tortoise, the crocodile, hzards 

 and frogs. It is certain that the goat's-head bird 

 has not got a spleen, nor have the bloodless species. 

 Sometimes it causes a pecuUar impediment in run- 

 ning, owing to which runners who have trouble have 

 an operation to reduce it. Also cases are repoi-ted 

 of animals hving after it has been removed by an in- 

 cision. There are some who think that this operation 

 deprives a man of the power of laughing, and that 

 inabihty to control one's laughter is caused by 

 enlargement of the spleen. It is said that in a 

 district in Asia called Scepsis the cattle have ex- 

 tremely small spleens, and that remedies for the 

 spleen have been imported from there. 



561 



