The entrails of serpents and lizards are of remarkable length. It is related that—a most fortunate omen—Cæcina of Volaterræ beheld two dragons arising from the entrails of the victim; and this will not be at all incredible, if we are ready to believe that while King Pyrrhus was sacrificing, the day upon which he died, the heads of the victims, on being cut off, crawled along the ground and licked up their own blood. In man, the entrails are separated from the lower part of the viscera by a certain membrane, which is called the “præcordia,”[288] because it is extended in front of the heart; the Greeks have given it the name of “phrenes.” All the principal viscera have been enclosed by Nature, in her prudent foresight, in their own peculiar membranes, just like so many sheaths, in fact. With reference to the diaphragm, there was a peculiar reason for this wise provision of Nature, its proximity to the guts, and the chances that the food might possibly intercept the respiration. It is to this organ that is attributed quick and ready wit, and hence it is that it has no fleshy parts, but is composed of fine sinews and membranes. This part is also the chief seat of gaiety of mind, a fact which is more particularly proved by the titillation of the arm-holes, to which the midriff extends; indeed, in no part of the body is the skin more fine; for this reason it is, also, that we experience such peculiar pleasure in scratching the parts in its vicinity. Hence it is, that in battles and gladiatorial combats, many persons have been known to be pierced through the midriff, and to die in the act of laughing.[289] CHAP. 78.—THE BELLY: ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NO BELLY. WHICH ARE THE ONLY ANIMALS THAT VOMIT. In those animals which have a stomach, below the diaphragm the belly is situate. In other animals it is single, but in those which ruminate it is double; in those, again, which are destitute of blood, there is no belly, for the intestinal canal commences in some of them at the mouth, and returns to that part, as is the case with the sæpia and the polypus. In man it is connected with the extremity of the stomach, and the same with the dog. These are the only creatures that have the belly more narrow at the lower part; hence it is, too, that they are the only ones that vomit, for on the belly being filled, the narrowness at its extremity precludes the food from passing; a thing that cannot possibly be the case with the animals in which the belly is more capacious at the extremity, and so leaves a free passage for the food to the lower parts of the body. CHAP. 79.—THE SMALL GUTS, THE FRONT INTESTINES, THE ANUS, THE COLON. THE CAUSES OF THE INSATIATE VORACITY OF CERTAIN ANIMALS.