52 NATURAL HISTORY 



Mr. Ray observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up the 

 nostrils of such asses as were hard worked ; for they, being 

 naturally straight or small, did not admit air sufficient to 

 serve them when they travelled, or laboured in that hot 

 climate. And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the 

 turf, think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in 

 hunters and running horses. Oppian, the Greek poet, by 

 the following line, seems to have had some notion that stags 

 have four spiracula. 



TerpaSvpoi pivtc, Triirvpes Trvoififfi liavXoi. 

 " Quadrifidae nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." 



OPP. Cyn. lib. ii. 1. 181 



Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say 

 that goats breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts just the 

 contrary : 3 'AAKjCxa/wy yap OUK .aAnO*] Asyst, (po^ufi/of ctvcnrvs'ii/ 

 rocg oc.lytx.<; xocroc roc WTO,. " Alcmaeon does not advance 

 what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through 

 their ears/' History of Animals, Book I. chap, xi. 1 



Philosophical Journal" for October, 1835, says: "The passage of air 

 through these cavities cannot take place, as they are perfectly im- 

 pervious towards the nostril ; but I have no doubt that the fact stated 

 [by White] is correct ; the air which escapes passing not through the 

 infra-orbital sacs, but through the lachrymal passages, which are very 

 large, consisting of two openings capable of admitting the end of a 

 crow's quill, the entrance to a tortuous canal, which conducts the tears 

 to the extremity of the nose. Introducing a pipe into the outlet of the 

 nasal duct, at the extremity of the nose, I can without difficulty force a 

 current of air or water through the nasal duct [Qw#re, lachrymal sinus. 

 ED.] and it therefore appears reasonable to admit that the effect observed 

 [by White], arose from the animal forcing the air into the nostrils while 

 the nose and mouth were immersed in water." ED. 



1 It is possible that this idea may have originated in the possession by 

 the chamois of post-auditory sinuses ; the openings of which behind the 

 base of the ears may have been regarded as orifices for breathing, in the 

 same manner as a similar function was erroneously ascribed to the 

 suborbital sinuses. There is more reason in the supposition that the 

 ears communicate with the nose, than that the suborbital sinus has any 

 such communication ; since in all animals that have a tympanic cavity 

 opening upon the surface by an external passage, there is another conduit 

 termed the Eustachian tube, leading inwards from the tympanum to the 

 nose, the use of which is to regulate the pressure of the atmosphere 

 upon the membrana tympani, and to convey superfluous moisture to the 

 nose. ED. 



