But in some of the pale-blooded and colder animals, as in snails,
whelks, shrimps, and shell-fish, there is a part which pulsates,
--a kind of vesicle or auricle without a heart,--slowly, indeed,
and not to be perceived except in the warmer season of the year.
In these creatures this part is so contrived that it shall
pulsate, as there is here a necessity for some impulse to
distribute the nutritive fluid, by reason of the variety of
organic parts, or of the density of the substance; but the
pulsations occur unfrequently, and sometimes in consequence of
the cold not at all, an arrangement the best adapted to them as
being of a doubtful nature, so that sometimes they appear to
live, sometimes to die; sometimes they show the vitality of an
animal, sometimes of a vegetable. This seems also to be the case
with the insects which conceal themselves in winter, and lie, as
it were, defunct, or merely manifesting a kind of vegetative
existence. But whether the same thing happens in the case of
certain animals that have red blood, such as frogs, tortoises,
serpents, swallows, may be very properly doubted.
In all the larger and warmer animals which have red blood, there
was need of an impeller of the nutritive fluid, and that,
perchance, possessing a considerable amount of power. In fishes,
serpents, lizards, tortoises, frogs, and others of the same kind
there is a heart present, furnished with both an auricle and a
ventricle, whence it is perfectly true, as Aristotle has
observed, [Footnote: De Part. Animal., lib. iii.] that no
sanguineous animal is without a heart, by the impelling power of
which the nutritive fluid is forced, both with greater vigour and
rapidity, to a greater distance; and not merely agitated by an
auricle, as it Is in lower forms. And then in regard to animals
that are yet larger, warmer, and more perfect, as they abound in
blood, which is always hotter and more spirituous, and which
possess bodies of greater size and consistency, these require a
larger, stronger, and more fleshy heart, in order that the
nutritive fluid may be propelled with yet greater force and
celerity. And further, inasmuch as the more perfect animals
require a still more perfect nutrition, and a larger supply of
native heat, in order that the aliment may be thoroughly
concocted and acquire the last degree of perfection, they
required both lungs and a second ventricle, which should force
the nutritive fluid through them.
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