152 SOUTH AFRICAN MAMMALS 



passed with great difficulty, after being a very sick hippo 

 for some days ; and secondly when another maniac threw 

 an empty soda water bottle into the back of his throat, 

 which his native attendant pluckily extracted before the 

 animal had a chance to chew or swallow it. It seems 

 incomprehensible that grown men can perpetrate such 

 idiotic — not to say cruel — acts against a defenceless 

 creature. 



RUMINANTIA. 



These are the Artiodactyle Mammals, more commonly 

 known as ruminant animals which " chew the cud," and 

 which are united under the above name. These possess 

 a complicated stomach consisting of four chambers — the 

 rumen, the reticulum, the psalterium and the abomasum. 

 The food taken in by the animal passes into the rumen 

 and reticulum, and remains there until it has eaten 

 enough, when it chews the cud, i.e., it " vomits " portions 

 of the food into its mouth, where it is re-masticated and 

 again swallowed, passing this time along the grove of the 

 paunch, and entering the psalterium, through which it 

 passes into the abomasum, where it is properly digested. 



The Pecora or Cotilopliora is a group containing the 

 horned ruminants such as the Deer, Giraffe and Antelope, 

 and which have no incisor or '* front " teeth in the upper 

 jaw. 



Family GIRAFFID^. 

 Genus GIRAFFA. 



Tall animals with long legs and enormously long necks ; 

 higher at the withers, i.e., with downward sloping backs. 

 On the head are a pair of erect horns (as they are usually 

 called) covered with skin. These have a bony core, which 

 are at first separate from the skull, but later in life 



