72 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 follow- 

 ing line, seems to have had some notion 

 that stags have four spiracula : 



" TiTfot^v^oi pi)it(;, 'injiavpss zjvoivxti 5iayAoi" 

 " Quadrifidae nares, quadruplices ad respirationem 

 " canales." 



Opp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 18L 



Writers copying from one another, make 

 Aristotle say that goats breathe at their ears ; 

 whereas he asserts just the contrary : — 



TC(g oiiyocg )tciT» ro6 carci.'' AlcmcBon does 



not advance what is true, when he avers 

 that goats breathe through their ears.'' 

 History of animals. Book I. chap. xi. 



