184 MAMMALIA. 



an enormous volume. The intestinal canal is very long^ 

 though there are but few enlargements in the great intestines. 

 The csecum is likewise long and tolerably smooth. The fat of 

 ruminating animals hardens more by cooling than that of other 

 quadrupeds, and even becomes brittle. It is called tallow. 

 Their mammse are placed between the thighs. 



Of all animalsj the Ruminantia are the most useful to man. 

 They furnish him with food, and nearly all the flesh he con- 

 sumes. Some serve him as beasts of burden, others with their 

 milk, their tallow, leather, horns, &c. The two first genera 

 have no horns. 



Camelus, Lin. 



The Camels approximate to the preceding order rather more thaii 

 the others. They not only always have canini in both jaws, but 

 they also have two pointed teeth implanted in the incisive bone, six 

 inferior incisors and from eighteen to twenty molars onlyj peculiari- 

 ties, which, of all the Ruminantia, they alone possess, as well as that 

 of having the scaphoid and cuboid bones of the tarsus separate. In- 

 stead of the large hoof flattened on its internal side which envelopes 

 the whole inferior portion of each toe, and which determines the 

 figure of the common cloven-foot, they have but one small one, 

 w^hich only adheres to the last phalanx, and is symmetrically formed 

 liked the hoofs of the pachydermata. Their tumid and cleft lip, 

 their long neck, prominent orbits, weakness of the crupper, and the 

 disagreeable proportions of their legs and feet, render them some- 

 what deformed, but their extreme sobriety and the faculty they pos- 

 sess of passing several days without drinking, make them of the 

 highest importance. 



The faculty just mentioned probably results from the large masses 

 of cells which cover the sides of their paunch, in which water is con- 

 stantly retained or produced. The other Ruminantia have nothing 

 of the kind. 



The Camel urinates backwards, but the direction of the penis 

 changes in coitu, which is eflecied with much difficulty, and while 

 the female lies down. In the rutting season a fetid humour oozes 

 from their head. 



Camelus, Cuv. 



Camels, properly so called, have the two toes united below nearly 

 to the point by a common sole, and the back furnished with lumps 

 of fat. They arc large animals of the eastern continent, of which 



