Aristotle THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

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128 pages - You are on Page 103

In the crawfish the male differs from the female: in the female the first foot is bifurcate, in the male it is undivided; the belly-fins in the female are large and overlapping on the neck, while in the male they are smaller and do not overlap; and, further, on the last feet of the male there are spur-like projections, large and sharp, which projections in the female are small and smooth. Both male and female have two antennae in front of the eyes, large and rough, and other antennae underneath, small and smooth. The eyes of all these creatures are hard and beady, and can move either to the inner or to the outer side. The eyes of most crabs have a similar facility of movement, or rather, in the crab this facility is developed in a higher degree. (See diagram.)

The lobster is all over grey-coloured, with a mottling of black. Its under or hinder feet, up to the big feet or claws, are eight in number; then come the big feet, far larger and flatter at the tips than the same organs in the crawfish; and these big feet or claws are exceptional in their structure, for the right claw has the extreme flat surface long and thin, while the left claw has the corresponding surface thick and round. Each of the two claws, divided at the end like a pair of jaws, has both below and above a set of teeth: only that in the right claw they are all small and saw-shaped, while in the left claw those at the apex are saw-shaped and those within are molar-shaped, these latter being, in the under part of the cleft claw, four teeth close together, and in the upper part three teeth, not close together. Both right and left claws have the upper part mobile, and bring it to bear against the lower one, and both are curved like bandy-legs, being thereby adapted for apprehension and constriction. Above the two large claws come two others, covered with hair, a little underneath the mouth; and underneath these the gill-like formations in the region of the mouth, hairy and numerous. These organs the animal keeps in perpetual motion; and the two hairy feet it bends and draws in towards its mouth. The feet near the mouth are furnished also with delicate outgrowing appendages. Like the crawfish, the lobster has two teeth, or mandibles, and above these teeth are its antennae, long, but shorter and finer by far than those of the crawfish, and then four other antennae similar in shape, but shorter and finer than the others. Over these antennae come the eyes, small and short, not large like the eyes of the crawfish. Over the eyes is a peaky rough projection like a forehead, larger than the same part in the crawfish; in fact, the frontal part is more pointed and the thorax is much broader in the lobster than in the crawfish, and the body in general is smoother and more full of flesh. Of the eight feet, four are bifurcate at the extremities, and four are undivided. The region of the so-called neck is outwardly divided into five divisions, and sixthly comes the flattened portion at the end, and this portion has five flaps, or tail-fins; and the inner or under parts, into which the female drops her spawn, are four in number and hairy, and on each of the aforesaid parts is a spine turned outwards, short and straight. The body in general and the region of the thorax in particular are smooth, not rough as in the crawfish; but on the large claws the outer portion has larger spines. There is no apparent difference between the male and female, for they both have one claw, whichever it may be, larger than the other, and neither male nor female is ever found with both claws of the same size.

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