第17章

The chameleon resembles the lizard in the general configuration of its body, but the ribs stretch downwards and meet together under the belly as is the case with fishes, and the spine sticks up as with the fish. Its face resembles that of the baboon. Its tail is exceedingly long, terminates in a sharp point, and is for the most part coiled up, like a strap of leather. It stands higher off the ground than the lizard, but the flexure of the legs is the same in both creatures. Each of its feet is divided into two parts, which bear the same relation to one another that the thumb and the rest of the hand bear to one another in man. Each of these parts is for a short distance divided after a fashion into toes; on the front feet the inside part is divided into three and the outside into two, on the hind feet the inside part into two and the outside into three; it has claws also on these parts resembling those of birds of prey. Its body is rough all over, like that of the crocodile. Its eyes are situated in a hollow recess, and are very large and round, and are enveloped in a skin resembling that which covers the entire body;and in the middle a slight aperture is left for vision, through which the animal sees, for it never covers up this aperture with the cutaneous envelope. It keeps twisting its eyes round and shifting its line of vision in every direction, and thus contrives to get a sight of any object that it wants to see. The change in its colour takes place when it is inflated with air; it is then black, not unlike the crocodile, or green like the lizard but black-spotted like the pard. This change of colour takes place over the whole body alike, for the eyes and the tail come alike under its influence. In its movements it is very sluggish, like the tortoise. It assumes a greenish hue in dying, and retains this hue after death. It resembles the lizard in the position of the oesophagus and the windpipe. It has no flesh anywhere except a few scraps of flesh on the head and on the jaws and near to the root of the tail. It has blood only round about the heart, the eyes, the region above the heart, and in all the veins extending from these parts; and in all these there is but little blood after all. The brain is situated a little above the eyes, but connected with them. When the outer skin is drawn aside from off the eye, a something is found surrounding the eye, that gleams through like a thin ring of copper. Membranes extend well nigh over its entire frame, numerous and strong, and surpassing in respect of number and relative strength those found in any other animal. After being cut open along its entire length it continues to breathe for a considerable time; a very slight motion goes on in the region of the heart, and, while contraction is especially manifested in the neighbourhood of the ribs, a similar motion is more or less discernible over the whole body. It has no spleen visible. It hibernates, like the lizard.

12

Birds also in some parts resemble the above mentioned animals;that is to say, they have in all cases a head, a neck, a back, a belly, and what is analogous to the chest. The bird is remarkable among animals as having two feet, like man; only, by the way, it bends them backwards as quadrupeds bend their hind legs, as was noticed previously. It has neither hands nor front feet, but wings-an exceptional structure as compared with other animals. Its haunch-bone is long, like a thigh, and is attached to the body as far as the middle of the belly; so like to a thigh is it that when viewed separately it looks like a real one, while the real thigh is a separate structure betwixt it and the shin. Of all birds those that have crooked talons have the biggest thighs and the strongest breasts. All birds are furnished with many claws, and all have the toes separated more or less asunder; that is to say, in the greater part the toes are clearly distinct from one another, for even the swimming birds, although they are web-footed, have still their claws fully articulated and distinctly differentiated from one another.

Birds that fly high in air are in all cases four-toed: that is, the greater part have three toes in front and one behind in place of a heel; some few have two in front and two behind, as the wryneck.

This latter bird is somewhat bigger than the chaffinch, and is mottled in appearance. It is peculiar in the arrangement of its toes, and resembles the snake in the structure of its tongue; for the creature can protrude its tongue to the extent of four finger-breadths, and then draw it back again. Moreover, it can twist its head backwards while keeping all the rest of its body still, like the serpent. It has big claws, somewhat resembling those of the woodpecker. Its note is a shrill chirp.

Birds are furnished with a mouth, but with an exceptional one, for they have neither lips nor teeth, but a beak. Neither have they ears nor a nose, but only passages for the sensations connected with these organs: that for the nostrils in the beak, and that for hearing in the head. Like all other animals they all have two eyes, and these are devoid of lashes. The heavy-bodied (or gallinaceous)birds close the eye by means of the lower lid, and all birds blink by means of a skin extending over the eye from the inner corner; the owl and its congeners also close the eye by means of the upper lid.