Aristotle, Second Part of THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

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II: 128 pages - You are on Page 18

The porphyrae, or purple murices, gather together to some one place in the spring-time, and deposit the so-called 'honeycomb'. This substance resembles the comb, only that it is not so neat and delicate; and looks as though a number of husks of white chick-peas were all stuck together. But none of these structures has any open passage, and the porphyra does not grow out of them, but these and all other testaceans grow out of mud and decaying matter. The substance, is, in fact, an excretion of the porphyra and the ceryx; for it is deposited by the ceryx as well. Such, then, of the testaceans as deposit the honeycomb are generated spontaneously like all other testaceans, but they certainly come in greater abundance in places where their congeners have been living previously. At the commencement of the process of depositing the honeycomb, they throw off a slippery mucus, and of this the husklike formations are composed. These formations, then, all melt and deposit their contents on the ground, and at this spot there are found on the ground a number of minute porphyrae, and porphyrae are caught at times with these animalculae upon them, some of which are too small to be differentiated in form. If the porphyrae are caught before producing this honey-comb, they sometimes go through the process in fishing-creels, not here and there in the baskets, but gathering to some one spot all together, just as they do in the sea; and owing to the narrowness of their new quarters they cluster together like a bunch of grapes.

There are many species of the purple murex; and some are large, as those found off Sigeum and Lectum; others are small, as those found in the Euripus, and on the coast of Caria. And those that are found in bays are large and rough; in most of them the peculiar bloom from which their name is derived is dark to blackness, in others it is reddish and small in size; some of the large ones weigh upwards of a mina apiece. But the specimens that are found along the coast and on the rocks are small-sized, and the bloom in their case is of a reddish hue. Further, as a general rule, in northern waters the bloom is blackish, and in southern waters of a reddish hue. The murex is caught in the spring-time when engaged in the construction of the honeycomb; but it is not caught at any time about the rising of the dog-star, for at that period it does not feed, but conceals itself and burrows. The bloom of the animal is situated between the mecon (or quasi-liver) and the neck, and the co-attachment of these is an intimate one. In colour it looks like a white membrane, and this is what people extract; and if it be removed and squeezed it stains your hand with the colour of the bloom. There is a kind of vein that runs through it, and this quasi-vein would appear to be in itself the bloom. And the qualities, by the way, of this organ are astringent. It is after the murex has constructed the honeycomb that the bloom is at its worst. Small specimens they break in pieces, shells and all, for it is no easy matter to extract the organ; but in dealing with the larger ones they first strip off the shell and then abstract the bloom. For this purpose the neck and mecon are separated, for the bloom lies in between them, above the so-called stomach; hence the necessity of separating them in abstracting the bloom. Fishermen are anxious always to break the animal in pieces while it is yet alive, for, if it die before the process is completed, it vomits out the bloom; and for this reason the fishermen keep the animals in creels, until they have collected a sufficient number and can attend to them at their leisure. Fishermen in past times used not to lower creels or attach them to the bait, so that very often the animal got dropped off in the pulling up; at present, however, they always attach a basket, so that if the animal fall off it is not lost. The animal is more inclined to slip off the bait if it be full inside; if it be empty it is difficult to shake it off. Such are the phenomena connected with the porphyra or murex.

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