74 
pliny's fatueal histoet. 
[Book XT.. 
the loins. Among all animals, tlie kidney on the right side is 
more elevated than the other, less fat, and drier. In both kid- 
neys there is a certain streak of fat running from the middle, 
with the sole exception of those of the sea-calf. It is above 
the kidneys, also, that animals are fattest, and the accumula- 
tion of fat about them is often the cause of death in sheep. 
Small stones are sometimes found in the kidneys. All quad- 
rupeds that are viviparous have kidneys, but of those which 
are oviparous the tortoise is the only one that has them ; an 
animal which has all the other viscera, but, like man, has the 
kidneys composed, to aU appearance, of several kidneys, similar 
to those of the ox. 
CHAP. 82. — THE breast: the eibs. 
Nature has placed the breast, or, in other words, certain 
bones, around the diaphragm and the organs of life, but not 
around the belly, for the expansion of which it was necessary 
that room should be left. Indeed, there is no animal that 
has any bones around the belly. Man is the only creature 
that has a broad breast ; in all others it is of a carinated 
shape, in birds more particularly, and most of all, the aquatic 
birds. The ribs of man are only eight in number ; swine 
have ten, the horned animals thirteen, and serpents thirty. 
CHAP. 83. — the bladdee : animals which have no blabdee. 
Below the paunch, on the anterior side, lies the bladder, 
which is never found in any oviparous animal, with the ex- 
ception of the tortoise, nor yet in any animal that has not 
lungs with blood, or in any one that is destitute of feet. 
Between it and the paunch are certain arteries, which extend 
to the pubes, and are known as the ilia." In the bladder of 
the wolf there is found a small stone, which is called syrites 
and in the bladders of some persons calculi are sometimes i 
found, which produce most excruciating pains ; small hairs, j 
like bristles, are also occasionally found in the bladder. This j 
organ consists of a membrane, which, when once wounded, does I 
not^ cicatrize, just like those in which the brain and the heart 
are enveloped : there are many kinds of membranes, in fact. 
^ This is a mistake. It does cicatrize. 
