¹ Cf. Cole, F. J., ‘Aristotle's Lantern’, Centaurus i (1950–1951) 377Google Scholar, for various views that have been held on the reference of the lantern analogy and on the history of the term ‘Aristotle's lantern’. According to Cole, it is first used as a technical term in zoology by Klein, Jacob in his Naturalis Dispositio Echinoderatum (1734) 41, and pl. 31Google Scholar.

² Aristotle, , Historia Animalium ii (Bks iv–vi), trans. Peck, A. L. (1970) 352 (hereafter ‘Peck’)Google Scholar.

³ Peck 351.

⁴ LSJ s.v. ἐχῖνος.

⁵ Cf. n. 1.

⁶ Borradaile, L. A., Potts, F. A., The Invertebrata: A Manual for the Use of Students,⁴ revised Kerkut, G. A. (Cambridge 1963) 690Google Scholar.

⁷ William Ogle (Ross, W. D. and Smith, J. A., eds, The Works of Aristotle Translated into English: v De Partibus Animalium [Oxford 1912] 680a6, n. 3Google Scholar) says that ‘As the sea-urchin has no tongue, the pharyngeal portion of the oesophagus must be meant.’ What leads Ogle to this claim is in part that he interprets Aristotle's remark that ἔχουσι δ᾿ οἱ ἐχῖνοι ὀδόντας μἐν πέντε καὶ μεταξὺ τὸ σαρκῶδες (680a5–6) to mean that the fleshy part is ‘in the centre of’ (Ogle's translation) the five teeth. It is more natural to take it to mean between the five teeth—and a glance at FIG. I shows that the compasses are the observable basis for this reading. In the other species in which Aristotle describes this fleshy organ of taste (cf. 687b8–13, 23–5, 670b5–8, b36), there are only two teeth, and so μεταξὺ unambiguously means in the middle of the teeth. But as the sea-urchin has five teeth, each separated by a ‘fleshy object’, and as Aristotle clearly distinguishes the oesophagus from the mouth, I suppose the reference is to the ‘compass’. And, while ‘the fleshy thing’ is not mentioned, 680b8–681a4 goes to some length to explain why sea-urchins have five of various parts, while other related species have only one or two.

⁸ This view is virtually clinched by GA i 15 720b18 20: ἡ γἀρ φύσις παρὰ τὸ στόμα τὴν τελευτὴν τοῦ περιττώματος συνήγαγε κἀμψασα, καθάπερ εἴρηται πρότερον . . .

⁹ E.g., at Met. x 1 1052a23–5: ‘something is most of all one if it is such by nature and not due to force as whatever is one due to binding, nailing, or gluing—but has in itself the cause of its being continuous (συνεχὲς)’.

¹⁰ Peck 351 gives a plausible argument for Scotus' reading—genus—being due to his misreading the Arabic term for ‘body’, which suggests σῶμα was in the Arabic translator's Greek MS. I owe the information on the manuscript readings to Prof. D. M. Balme (personal correspondence).

¹¹ τὸ στόμα was not commonly adopted until the edition of Aubert, and Wimmer, , Aristotle's Thierkunde (Leipzig 1866)Google Scholar; it was then followed by Dittmeyer, L., Aristoteles de animalibus historia (Leipzig 1907)Google Scholar, Thompson, D. W., Ross, and Smith, , eds. The Works of Aristotle … iv (Oxford 1910)Google Scholar, and Louis, P., Aristote, Histoire des Animaux (Livres i–iv) (Paris 1964)Google Scholar. Thompson (531a3 n. 5) says ‘it cannot be doubted that the allusion is to the whole oral mechanism, now known as “Aristotle's lantern” …’, but gives no grounds for his certainty. His translation of 531a5 is more than usually interpretive, e.g. μὴ ἔχοντι τὸ κύκλῳ δέρμα becomes ‘with the panes of horn left out’!

¹² The Cambridge Natural History, ed. Harmer, S. F., Shipley, A. E. (London 1895–1909) i 504Google Scholar.

¹³ Tim. 45b4–d7, 68b1.

¹⁴ De Sensu 437b26–483a3 quotes the relevant passage (DK 31 b34).

¹⁵ The basic texts for the descriptive features of this sort of lantern are those in Aristotle (LSJ s.v. λαμπτήρ). Prof. Ann Weiss of the Department of Classics, University of Pittsburgh, drew my attention to a statue in the Museo Nazionale Romano, printed in Museo Nazionale Romano: Le Sculture (Rome 1979)Google Scholar, of a sleeping youth holding a lantern which looks not unlike that described in Aristotle. The author of the entry claims that it is based on Greek models of sleeping youths on Greek stelae, but unfortunately the Greek counterparts lack a lantern: cf. Richter, G., A Handbook of Greek Art (New York 1980) fig. 218Google Scholar.