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Petrus Camper, "Two Lessons on the Analogy that exists between the
quadrupeds, birds, and fish." (13-14 October, 1778).
Camper demonstrates in his first lesson the real analogy that exists
between the quadrupeds, and, in his second lesson, how, thanks to this
analogy, all animals can be drawn correctly.
Having a personal collection of skeletons, he was able to discover that
all animals, even fish and birds, are like quadrupeds from comparative
anatomy. |
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Petrus Camper derived five general rules:
- Animals that are not low enough to the ground to scoop up their food
are compensated by a long neck. Fish and snakes don't have necks because
they don't need necks; they feed directly. The forequarters of animals,
whose high legs require a long neck, are always lower than in other
animals, i.e. sheep, deer, and camels have back spines and haunches that
slant diagonally.
- The stomach area is much larger among herbivorous animals than among
carnivores, and much, much larger among those that chew the cud than
animals who aren't ruminants. Intestines do not need as large a volume
to convert flesh into flesh as they do to change grass into flesh. The
cow eats once to fill his belly and then chews the cud, whereas the
horse eats continually. Therefore the cow has a bigger stomach than the
horse; the horse than the dog, and etc.
- Animals are as long as they have number of vertebrae in their loins
(the elephant has three, the horse 5, the cow 6, the lion, cat, and
camel 7).
- Among animals like the elephant, horse, bull, deer, camel and all
ruminants (also the pig), the feet have solid horn or clefts so that
they can stand the necessary long time it takes for them to feed
themselves. In all the other species, the foot ends in toes. More than 5
is never found among the quadrupeds.
- Among the birds, wings end in fingers too. All have a thumb, most
have in addition two fingers, and several species have nails, e.g. the
ostrich.
This first lesson is illustrated by Camper with five examples:
Plate III, Fig. 1 horse
Fig. 2 cow
Plate IV, Fig. 3 dog
Fig. 4 camel
Plate V, Fig. 5 elephant
The second lesson:
Plate V, Fig. 8 horse again
Plate VI, Fig. 6 horse by Chrispyn van de Pas
Plate VI, Fig. 7 cow by Chrispyn van de Pas
Plate VI, Fig. 9 crane
Plate VI, Fig. 10 frog
Plate VI, Fig. 11 rowboat
Plate VI, Fig. 11 fish
Plate VII, Fig. 12 cow-crane metamorphosis
Plate VII, Fig. 13 horse-human metamorphosis
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