EXPERIMENTS ON RUMINATION. 151 



larger part, is found in the first and second stomachs, and an- 

 other part in the third and in the fourth stomachs. 



In making such experiments there was always found in the 

 two first stomachs, besides the food eaten just before the sheep 

 was opened, alimentary matters which had been previously 

 swallowed some still dry and unreduced, others reduced and 

 fluid, the proportion of the unreduced being always greater in 

 the paunch, and that of the reduced greater in the honeycomb. 



Another series of experiments gives further proof of the 

 true mechanism of the stomachs in ruminants like the sheep. 

 It is practicable to make each of the stomachs communicate 

 directly from without while the animal still lives, and freely eats 

 and drinks. When such an aperture has been made in the 

 first stomach, and food is put before the animal, it eats and 

 swallows, and part of the food immediately issues by the aper- 

 ture. And if the finger is introduced through the aperture 

 into the paunch, the food is felt arriving in the paunch as it is 

 given up by the gullet. If such an aperture has been effected 

 in the second stomach, when the sheep eats a part of the food 

 issues forth by the aperture ; and the finger introduced into 

 the honeycomb by the aperture feels the food enter that stomach 

 as it passes from the gullet. These two forms of experiment 

 confirm the belief that the food in the first deglutition passes, 

 though in different proportions, into the first and also into the 

 second stomach. Yet there are experiments which show that 

 the food passes from the paunch into the honeycomb, and from 

 the honeycomb into the paunch. Thus, if an aperture is made 

 into each of these two stomachs that is, one aperture into the 

 paunch and another aperture into the honeycomb the finger, 

 introduced alternately into the one and the other aperture 

 while the animal is eating, discovers the aliment coming now 

 into the paunch, now into the honeycomb ; but if the finger is 

 thus alternately introduced into the one and the other aperture 



