第39章

The following properties are common to all crustaceans: they have in all cases two teeth, or mandibles (for the front teeth in the crawfish are two in number), and in all cases there is in the mouth a small fleshy structure serving for a tongue; and the stomach is close to the mouth, only that the crawfish has a little oesophagus in front of the stomach, and there is a straight gut attached to it. This gut, in the crawfish and its congeners, and in the carids, extends in a straight line to the tail, and terminates where the animal discharges the residuum, and where the female deposits her spawn; in the crab it terminates where the flap is situated, and in the centre of the flap. (And by the way, in all these animals the spawn is deposited outside.) Further, the female has the place for the spawn running along the gut. And, again, all these animals have, more or less, an organ termed the 'mytis', or 'poppyjuice'.

We must now proceed to review their several differentiae.

The crawfish then, as has been said, has two teeth, large and hollow, in which is contained a juice resembling the mytis, and in between the teeth is a fleshy substance, shaped like a tongue. After the mouth comes a short oesophagus, and then a membranous stomach attached to the oesophagus, and at the orifice Of the stomach are three teeth, two facing one another and a third standing by itself underneath. Coming off at a bend from the stomach is a gut, simple and of equal thickness throughout the entire length of the body until it reaches the anal vent.

These are all common properties of the crawfish, the carid, and the crab; for the crab, be it remembered, has two teeth.

Again, the crawfish has a duct attached all the way from the chest to the anal vent; and this duct is connected with the ovary in the female, and with the seminal ducts in the male. This passage is attached to the concave surface of the flesh in such a way that the flesh is in betwixt the duct and the gut; for the gut is related to the convexity and this duct to the concavity, pretty much as is observed in quadrupeds. And the duct is identical in both the sexes;that is to say, the duct in both is thin and white, and charged with a sallow-coloured moisture, and is attached to the chest.

(The following are the properties of the egg and of the convolutes in the carid.)The male, by the way, differs from the female in regard to its flesh, in having in connexion with the chest two separate and distinct white substances, resembling in colour and conformation the tentacles of the cuttle-fish, and they are convoluted like the 'poppy'

or quasi-liver of the trumpet-shell. These organs have their starting-point in 'cotyledons' or papillae, which are situated under the hindmost feet; and hereabouts the flesh is red and blood-coloured, but is slippery to the touch and in so far unlike flesh. Off from the convolute organ at the chest branches off another coil about as thick as ordinary twine; and underneath there are two granular seminal bodies in juxta-position with the gut. These are the organs of the male. The female has red-coloured eggs, which are adjacent to the stomach and to each side of the gut all along to the fleshy parts, being enveloped in a thin membrane.

Such are the parts, internal and external, of the carid.

3The inner organs of sanguineous animals happen to have specific designations; for these animals have in all cases the inner viscera, but this is not the case with the bloodless animals, but what they have in common with red-blooded animals is the stomach, the oesophagus, and the gut.

With regard to the crab, it has already been stated that it has claws and feet, and their position has been set forth; furthermore, for the most part they have the right claw bigger and stronger than the left. It has also been stated' that in general the eyes of the crab look sideways. Further, the trunk of the crab's body is single and undivided, including its head and any other part it may possess.

Some crabs have eyes placed sideways on the upper part, immediately under the back, and standing a long way apart, and some have their eyes in the centre and close together, like the crabs of Heracleotis and the so-called 'grannies'. The mouth lies underneath the eyes, and inside it there are two teeth, as is the case with the crawfish, only that in the crab the teeth are not rounded but long; and over the teeth are two lids, and in betwixt them are structures such as the crawfish has besides its teeth. The crab takes in water near by the mouth, using the lids as a check to the inflow, and discharges the water by two passages above the mouth, closing by means of the lids the way by which it entered; and the two passage-ways are underneath the eyes. When it has taken in water it closes its mouth by means of both lids, and ejects the water in the way above described. Next after the teeth comes the oesophagus, very short, so short in fact that the stomach seems to come straightway after the mouth. Next after the oesophagus comes the stomach, two-horned, to the centre of which is attached a simple and delicate gut; and the gut terminates outwards, at the operculum, as has been previously stated. (The crab has the parts in between the lids in the neighbourhood of the teeth similar to the same parts in the crawfish.) Inside the trunk is a sallow juice and some few little bodies, long and white, and others spotted red. The male differs from the female in size and breadth, and in respect of the ventral flap; for this is larger in the female than in the male, and stands out further from the trunk, and is more hairy (as is the case also with the female in the crawfish).

So much, then, for the organs of the malacostraca or crustacea.