Then comes the lung, single, and articulated with a membranous
passage, very long, and quite detached from the heart. The liver is
long and simple; the spleen is short and round: as is the case in both
respects with the saurians. Its gall resembles that of the fish; the
water-snakes have it beside the liver, and the other snakes have it
usually beside the gut. These creatures are all saw-toothed. Their
ribs are as numerous as the days of the month; in other words, they
are thirty in number.
Some affirm that the same phenomenon is observable with
serpents as with swallow chicks; in other words, they say that if
you prick out a serpent's eyes they will grow again. And further,
the tails of saurians and of serpents, if they be cut off, will grow
again.
With fishes the properties of the gut and stomach are similar;
that is, they have a stomach single and simple, but variable in
shape according to species. For in some cases the stomach is
gut-shaped, as with the scarus, or parrot-fish; which fish, by the
way, appears to be the only fish that chews the cud. And the whole
length of the gut is simple, and if it have a reduplication or kink it
loosens out again into a simple form.
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