The reason for
their food being so rapidly transmitted to the stomach is that they
cannot possibly spend any time in sucking out the juices; for were
they to attempt to do so, the water would make its way in during the
process. Unless therefore one pulls their mouth very widely open,
the projection of this part is quite invisible. The region exposed
by thus opening the mouth is spinous; for it is formed by the close
apposition of the gills, which are of a spinous character.
In crocodiles the immobility of the lower jaw also contributes in
some measure to stunt the development of the tongue. For the
crocodile's tongue is adherent to the lower jaw. For its upper and
lower jaws are, as it were, inverted, it being the upper jaw which
in other animals is the immovable one. The tongue, however, on this
animal is not attached to the upper jaw, because that would
interfere with the ingestion of food, but adheres to the lower jaw,
because this is, as it were, the upper one which has changed its
place. Moreover, it is the crocodile's lot, though a land animal, to
live the life of a fish, and this again necessarily involves an
indistinct formation of the part in question.
The roof of the mouth resembles flesh, even in many of the fishes;
and in some of the river species, as for instance in the fishes
known as Cyprini, is so very flesh-like and soft as to be taken by
careless observers for a tongue.
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