120 ARISTOTLE'S ANHOMCEOMERIA 



among Negroes. Two skulls of this kind, with the coronal, 

 sagittal, and parts of the lambdoid sutures nearly or quite 

 obliterated, may be seen at the Natural History Museum, 

 South Kensington. These skulls came from Ashanti and 

 from near Izavo, British East Africa, respectively. 



No information of any importance about the other bones 

 of the head is given by Aristotle, nor is any information 

 worthy of note given by him about other bones of the 

 human body, other than the ribs. He says : " On each side 

 of the body are eight ribs belonging to the upper and lower 

 parts of the trunk, for I have not heard anything worthy of 

 credit about the seven-ribbed Ligurians." * 



Usually there, are twelve ribs on each side of the 

 human body, the eleventh and twelfth being unconnected 

 to the sternum. It is not at all clear which are the eight ribs 

 to which Aristotle refers, or why he does not take account of 

 the remaining ribs. The Ligurians were short but strong 

 and brave people, who lived in a strip of maritime country 

 extending from the mouth of the Ehone to Pisse, in Etruria. 

 Schneider says, in his note on H. A. i. c. 10, s. 6, that the 

 tale of the fewer ribs of the Ligurians probably had an 

 origin similar to that current among some people about the 

 ribs of animals, e.g., some Carniolans assign more ribs to 

 the larger or better breeds of sheep. It may be mentioned 

 that, in Man, an increased number of ribs is sometimes 

 found, and, less frequently, a reduced number. 



Aristotle says that no animal with many toes, e. g., 

 Man, has astragali or knuckle-bones. t Man has astragali, 

 but they are very unsymmetrical and would therefore be 

 neglected by Aristotle. This will be further explained later 

 in his description of bones and cartilages. 



In H. A. iii. c. 7, s. 2, it is stated that the cranium is not 

 made in the same way in all animals, for it is formed in a 

 single bone in some, such as the dog. This is true of the 

 craniums of very old dogs, and some other animals, in 

 which the sutures become obliterated. 



Aristotle makes the erroneous statement, in more than 

 one passage, that the crocodile moves its upper jaw, and is 

 the only animal which does so. I The assertion was 

 probably copied from Herodotus, ii. 68, but Aristotle proceeds 

 to give a remarkably ingenious explanation. He says that 

 the crocodile's feet are so small that they are useless for 



•:- H. A. i. c. 10, s. G. f Ibid. ii. c. 2, s. 10. 



I H. A. i. c. 9, s. 6, iii. c. 7, s. 3 ; P. A. iv. c. 11, 6916. 



