Aristotle THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

128 pages - You are on Page 116

The tettix or cicada, alone of such creatures (and, in fact, alone of all creatures), is unprovided with a mouth, but it is provided with the tongue-like formation found in insects furnished with frontward stings; and this formation in the cicada is long, continuous, and devoid of any split; and by the aid of this the creature feeds on dew, and on dew only, and in its stomach no excretion is ever found. Of the cicada there are several kinds, and they differ from one another in relative magnitude, and in this respect that the achetes or chirper is provided with a cleft or aperture under the hypozoma and has in it a membrane quite discernible, whilst the membrane is indiscernible in the tettigonia.

Furthermore, there are some strange creatures to be found in the sea, which from their rarity we are unable to classify. Experienced fishermen affirm, some that they have at times seen in the sea animals like sticks, black, rounded, and of the same thickness throughout; others that they have seen creatures resembling shields, red in colour, and furnished with fins packed close together; and others that they have seen creatures resembling the male organ in shape and size, with a pair of fins in the place of the testicles, and they aver that on one occasion a creature of this description was brought up on the end of a nightline.

So much then for the parts, external and internal, exceptional and common, of all animals.

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