52 
NATURAL HI SI OR Y 
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. 
T^eTpadvfxoi plveg^ Tzi/Tvpig Trvoirjat diavXoi. 
" Quadrifidse nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales.'* 
0pp. Cyn, Hb. ii. 1. 181 
Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say 
that goats breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts just the 
contrary : — ^ AXyifj^ociodv yccp ova ocXyi^t] Xeysiy (paixsvog ccvocyrvsTu 
rocq ocTyocg nocroc roc Zroc. Alcmgeon does not advance 
what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through 
their ears.'' — History of Animals, Book I. chap, xi.^ 
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^ere, 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. 
* 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 memhrana tympani, and to convey superfluous moisture to the 
nose. — Ed. 
