INTRODUCTION. 15 



interior of the stomach. No account has yet been 

 given of the dissection of an individual so constituted. 



When cattle are at rest, or not employed in grazing 

 or chewing the cud, they are observed frequently to 

 lick themselves. By this means they raise up the hair 

 of their coats, and often swallow it in considerable 

 quantities. The hair thus swallowed gradually accu- 

 mulates in the stomach, where it is formed into smooth 

 round balls, which, in time, become invested with a 

 hardish brown crust, composed, apparently, of inspissated 

 mucilage, that, by continual friction from the coats of 

 the stomach, becomes hard and glossy. It is generally 

 in the paunch that these hair-balls are found. They 

 vary in weight from a few ounces to six or seven 

 pounds. Mr. Walton, author of an 'Account of the 

 Peruvian Sheep/ makes mention of one that he had 

 in his possession which weighed eight pounds and a 

 quarter. This hair-ball had been taken from a cow 

 that fed on the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. It was of 

 a flat circular shape, and measured two feet eleven 

 inches and a half in circumference; two feet eight 

 inches round the flat part ; nine inches diameter also in 

 the flat part; eleven inches diameter in the cross part; 

 and, on immersing it in water, it displaced upwards of 

 eight quarts, which made its bulk correspond to 462 

 cubic inches. The digestive functions are sometimes 

 seriously impaired by these concretions; a loss of appe- 

 tite ensues, and general debility. 



In the Museum of Daniel Crosthwaite, there is a 

 very extraordinary ball of hair, taken from a fatted 



