Cliap. 88.] 
THE liTEEVES. 
77 
CHAP. 87. BONES AND EISH-BONES : ANIMALS WHICH HATE 
NEITHEK. CAETILAGES. 
The bones are hard, also, in those animals ^ which do not 
grow fat ; those of the as-s are used by musicians for making 
flutes. Dolphins have bones, and not ordinary fish-bones ; for 
they are viviparous. Serpents, on the other hand, have bones 
i like those of fish. Among aquatic animals, the moUusks 
I have no bones, but the body is surrounded with circles of 
flesh, as in the ssepia and the cuttle-fish, for instance ; insects, 
also, are said to be equally destitute of bones. Among aquatic 
animals, those which are cartilaginous have marrow in the 
vertebral column ; the sea-calf has cartilages, and no bones. 
The ears also, and the nostrils in all animals, when remarkably 
prominent, are made flexible by a remarkable provision of 
JNTature, in order that they may not be broken. When cartilage 
is once broken, it will not unite ; nor will bone, when cut, grow 
again, except in beasts of burden, between the hoof and the 
pastern. 
Man increases in height till his twenty-first year, after 
which he fills out; but it is more particularly when" he first 
arrives at the age of puberty that he seems to have untied a 
sort of knot in his existence, and this especially when he has 
been overtaken by illness. 
CHAP. 88. THE NEEVE : ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NONE. 
The nerves ^ take their rise at the heart, and even surround 
it in the ox ; they have the same nature and principle as the 
marrow. In all animals they are fastened to the lubricous 
surface of the bones, and so serve to fasten those knots in the 
body which are known as articulations or joints, sometimes 
lying between them, sometimes surrounding them, and some- 
times running from one to another; in one place they are 
long and round, and in another broad, according as the ne- 
cessity of each case may demand. "When cut, they will not 
^ The hare and the partridge, for instance. 
^ There is considerable doubt what the ancients exactly meant by the 
"nervi ;" and whether, in fact, they had any definite idea of nerves," in 
our acceptation of the word. Pliny here expresses the opinions entertained 
by Aristotle. " Tendons," or " sinews," would almost appear to be the proper 
translation of the word. 
