140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



knows that a cow has four distinct stomachs. The first is the 

 paunch or rumen, which has no chemical influence upon the diges- 

 tion. It is simply a macerating- paunch; there is no secretion 

 from its surface. The paunch of the animal must therefore be 

 adapted to the size which will macerate the food to be digested in 

 the most perfect manner. After maceration, the cow transfers 

 from the paunch all the sufficiently macerated matter into the sec- 

 ond stomach, which is known as the "honey comb," or reticulum. 

 In that, the macerated food is moulded into small pellets. After 

 those pellets are thus moulded, the cow has the faculty of regur- 

 gitating, that is, throwing these pellets upwards and then chewing 

 them as a cud. After the cud is swallowed, the animal at will 

 directs it into the third stomach, which butchers know as "the 

 book" or "many folds," and by anatomists as the omasum* 



It is globular in form, and consists of leaves, which you may 

 turn over like the leaves of a book. If you examine these leaves, 

 you will find that the exterior portions of them are formed of 

 minute hooks, something like an old-fashioned card, and as you, 

 go upward, the sharpness of those claws diminishes, until you 

 have finally a mere flat, hard surface, where the food is rubbed, 

 and as it passes onward the cud is pulled apart, entirely disin- 

 tegrated. It then passes from this stomach into the truly diges- 

 tive or fourth stomach, known as the abomasum. In this stomach, 

 the gastric juice is found. Now, when the surface of this fourth 

 stomach is precisely adapted to the capacity of the three preced- 

 ing stomachs, you have, on the hypothesis that all the stomachs 



* In alluding to different views held in relation to the manner in which rnminatioo is 

 effected, Dr. J. B. Kimonds, professor of Cattle Pathology at the Royal Veterinary Col- 

 lege, London, says, " We are of opinion that the food in its second distent goes into tht 

 rumen, and also ! hat it is propelled directly by this viscus into the tjulltt to be remasticated 

 The situation of the sccoud stomach must interfere with its supposed property of 

 propelling upwards the pellet, for it is placed nearly at a right angle with the course of 

 that tube. This objection does not apply to the anterior division of the rumen which 

 we believe to be the part from whence the food is ejected. The musoular coat is thicker 

 here than elsewhere and its fibres are continuous, as befuro remarked, with those of the 

 lower part of the oesophagus; besides which we find them implanted into a strong fleshy 

 band which crosses the viscus in such a direction that it serves as a fulcrum from which 

 they can act. Thus we sec that even upon mechanical principles the rumen is a lapted 

 for this special purpose. If the remasticated food descended directly into the third 

 stomach, we should expect to find that organ of a proportionate size to contain as much 

 as would undergo the process, during at least one rumination; for all authors agree that 

 the food is detained for some time in the omasum, and it is well known that an ox will 

 continue to ruminate for upwards of an hour The omasum, however, in the animal is 

 far too small for such a purpose and in the sheep it is relatively smaller. II also it 

 be true that such aliment docs not pass into the rumen ' because it is less irritating to the 



