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CHAP. 81.—THE KIDNEYS: ANIMALS WHICH HAVE FOUR KID- NEYS. ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NONE.

About Briletum and Tharne1 the stags have four kidneys: while, on the other hand, those animals which have wings and scales have2 none. The kidneys adhere to the upper part of the loins. Among all animals, the kidney on the right side is more elevated than the other, less fat, and drier. In both kidneys there is a certain streak of fat running from the middle, with the sole exception of those of the sea-calf. It is above the kidneys, also, that animals are fattest, and the accumulation of fat about them is often the cause of death in sheep. Small stones are sometimes found in the kidneys. All quadrupeds that are viviparous have kidneys, but of those which are oviparous the tortoise is the only one that has them; an animal which has all the other viscera, but, like man, has the kidneys composed, to all appearance, of several kidneys, similar to those of the ox.

1 See p. 68.

2 This is not the case. Birds have kidneys, but of an irregular form.

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load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
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