THE PRODROMUS 257 



OTHER PARTS OF ANIMALS 



What has been said concerning shells must also be said con- 

 cerning other parts of animals, and animals themselves buried 

 in the earth. Here belong the teeth of sharks, the teeth of the 

 eagle-fish, 1 the vertebrae of fishes, whole fish of every kind, the 

 crania, horns, teeth, femurs, and other bones of land animals ; 

 since all these are either wholly like true parts of animals, or 

 differ from them only in weight and color, or have nothing in 

 common with them except the outer shape alone. 



A great difficulty is caused by the countless number of teeth 

 which every year are carried away from the island of Malta ; for 

 hardly a single ship touches there without bringing back with it 

 some proofs of that marvel. But I find no other answer to this 

 difficulty than : 



1. That there are six hundred and more teeth to each shark, 

 and all the while the sharks live new teeth seem to be growing. 



2. That the sea, driven by winds, is wont to thrust the bodies 

 in its path toward some one place and to heap them up there. 



3. That sharks come in shoals and so the teeth of many 

 sharks can be left in the same place. 



4. That in lumps of earth brought here from Malta,^ besides 

 p. 62. different teeth of different sharks, various mollusks are also 



found, so that even if the number of teeth favors attributing 

 their production to the earth, yet the structure of these same 

 teeth, the abundance in each animal, the earth resembling the 

 bottom of the sea, and the other sea objects found in the same 

 place, all alike support the opposite view. 



Others find great difficulty in the size of the femurs, crania, 

 and teeth, and other bones, which are dug from the earth. But 

 the objection, that an extraordinary size makes it necessary 

 to conclude the size to be beyond the powers of Nature, is not 

 of so great moment, seeing that : 



' Steno's phrase is piscis aguilae, ' eagle-fish.' The reference is to a family of rays known 

 scientifically as Myliobatidae and popularly as "eagle-rays," "devil-fishes," and "sea-devils." 

 The teeth are flat molars, adapted for crushing hard substances. 



2Cf. p. 211. 



