animals

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Some animals share

the properties of man and the quadrupeds, as
the ape, the monkey, and the baboon. The monkey is a tailed ape. The
baboon resembles the ape in form, only that it is bigger and stronger,
more like a dog in face, and is more savage in its habits, and its
teeth are more dog-like and more powerful.

Apes are hairy on the back in keeping with their quadrupedal
nature, and hairy on the belly in keeping with their human form-for,
as was said above, this characteristic is reversed in man and the
quadruped-only that the hair is coarse, so that the ape is thickly
coated both on the belly and on the back. Its face resembles that of
man in many respects; in other words, it has similar nostrils and
ears, and teeth like those of man, both front teeth and molars.
Further, whereas quadrupeds in general are not furnished with lashes
on one of the two eyelids, this creature has them on both, only very
thinly set, especially the under ones; in fact they are very
insignificant indeed. And we must bear in mind that all other
quadrupeds have no under eyelash at all.