OF THE HOLLOW-HORNED RUMINANTS. 59 



where the external appearance, as sometimes happens, is deceptive. Between these 

 two extremes, however, there is considerable gradation in the development of the 

 muzzle, and the habits of the animals undergo a proportionate modification. The 

 Bubals and Oryxes, for instance, have this organ but half developed, and we shall 

 afterwards find that they are as obviously intermediate in manners and oeconomy as they 

 are in organic structure. A small subgenus of Bos, on the other hand, including the 

 Muskox of the Polar regions, and the Yak which represents it on the elevated plains of 

 central Asia, have the upper lip covered with hair, but it is at the same time thick, 

 callous and unprehensile, and has in other respects all the characters of the true bovine 

 muzzle, as is proved by the form of the intermaxillary bones ; and the hairy covering, 

 in fact, appears to be only a provision of nature, as in the parallel instances of the Elk 

 and Reindeer, to defend the organ from the extreme cold of the rigorous climates 

 which these animals inhabit. 



But it is not only by an indiscriminate use or more choice selection of food that these 

 two classes of ruminating animals are distinguished from one another ; as might na- 

 turally be supposed, the situations and localities which they peculiarly affect are very 

 much influenced by the same circumstances, and the animals necessarily frequent such 

 places as abound most in their proper food. The grazing tribes, for example, such as 

 the Oxen, the Calliopes, the Tragelaphs, &c., are invariably found in lowland forests, 

 prairies, and rich savannahs, where the rank and luxuriant grasses afford a never-failing 

 supply of that coarse unnutritious food which Nature has appointed for their sustenance, 

 and of which they require large quantities to fill their capacious paunches ; whilst, on the 

 contrary, the browsing class, the Sheep, Goats, Antelopes, Gazelles, &c., are as invariably 

 confined to the arid deserts and karroos, or elevated mountain-chains, which abound in 

 the aromatic and saline herbs, the heaths, salsolas and euphorbias, which they delight 

 to crop, and which communicate to their flesh that musky smell and game flavour that 

 distinguish the venison of the Goat from the beef of the Ox. 



Another consequence of the variety of structure in the organs at present under con- 

 sideration, is to be noticed in the different nature and properties of the concretions so 

 frequently found in the stomachs of ruminating animals. These are principally of two 

 kinds, Bezoars and .iEgagropiles. The latter are common to all descriptions of Rumi- 

 nants, and are composed merely of the hair which the animal licks from its body, 

 agglutinized by a viscous matter, and rolled into balls and polished by the action of the 

 stomach. Bezoars, on the contrary, are composed of a substance analogous to the 

 tartar which often incrusts the teeth of domestic cattle, arranged in concentric and 

 highly polished layers round a small nucleus of some vegetable matter, such as the 

 seeds or buds of plants, and amalgamated with the aromatic gums so common in hot 

 dry countries. They are found only in the stomachs of Ruminants with ovine or atte- 

 nuated hairy lips, more especially those which browse on the resinous spicy shrubs of 

 Arabia and Persia, as the different species of Goats, Gazelles, and Antelopes, properly 



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