CURIOUS WAYS OF GETTING FOOD. 779 



and teeth for grasping food. A full descrij^tion of these organs more 

 properly belongs to the subject of eating food. Gnawing animals, like 

 the rabbit, have the four front teeth, incisors, acting as chisels. In 

 the hippopotamus the prehensile teeth form tremendous shears for 

 cutting plant-stems. 



Beasts of prey use jaws or feet, or both ; but, to bring the prey 

 within reach of either organ, requires keen senses to discover, and 



Fig. 9.— The Mammoth, or Hairy Elepuant. 



craftiness and speed to catch them. Animals of the dog tribe seize 

 with the jaws ; those of the cat tribe use all four feet. The supple 

 paw, with its retractile claws, is highly fitted for grasping and tearing, 

 as v^.eVi as for silent, stealthy tread. The cat's tongue is armed with 

 spiny, recurved papillro, to lap blood or scrape flesh from bones. 



Monkeys also employ all their feet for grasping ; and, in common 

 with those mammals that can sit on their hind-limbs, such as the 

 squirrel, rat, kangaroo, and bear, carry food to the mouth with the 

 fore-limbs ; and some monkeys use the sensitive tips of their long tails 

 to draw fruit from crevices or holes. The strainer of the Greenland 

 whale has been described. A shovel-bill is the appliance of the duck- 

 mole. 



Only reference can here be made to the adaptation of mammals to 

 the element in which their food exists. The whale, seal, hippopota- 

 mus, and duck-mole, find sustenance in the water. In the ground bur- 

 rows the mole ; the squirrel and sloth inhabit the trees, while the bat 

 searches the air. Thus every element contains representatives of this 

 highest animal group. 



Prehension of food is so various in means and methods that no 

 universal laws regarding it can be forraiilated. It can not form a 

 basis of classification, seeming to have little or no discovered relation 

 to animal rank. However, the subject is of greatest interest ; and, 



