EXPERIMENTS ON RUMINATION. 155 



the gullet ; and these two openings being shut and brought 

 together at this instant, a portion of the aliment is seized and 

 detached in the form of a pellet. 



On the one hand, this pellet is detached ; but it cannot be 

 seized by the two openings jointly without being detached from 

 the mass of aliment. On the other hand, this pellet is round ; 

 but this rounded form is exactly that of the apparatus by 

 which it is formed when this apparatus is in action ; that is to 

 say, when the demi-canal, by contracting, brings the two aper- 

 tures nearer the one to the other. Lastly, this pellet is about 

 an inch in diameter ; and an inch is also nearly the extent of 

 the demi-canal when it contracts. 



To recapitulate the whole process. Unless the food, after a 

 first imperfect mastication, be of a pulpy character, none of it 

 passes into the third and fourth stomachs, it all goes into the 

 first and second stomachs ; but if the food, after this first imper- 

 fect mastication, be of a pulpy character, it goes in part into 

 all the four stomachs. When the coarser kind of aliment has 

 been sufficiently macerated in the first and second stomachs, 

 with the aid of the saliva continually swallowed during the 

 interval between eating and ruminating, it is thrown into the 

 demi-canal by the contraction of the first and second stomachs, 

 aided by the contraction of the abdominal muscles and dia- 

 phragm ; then the demi-canal contracts, and, moulding its con- 

 tents to the shape of its narrowed and shortened form, converts 

 this separated portion of the aliment into a pellet, and at the 

 same time throws the pellet into the gullet, by the inverted 

 action of which it is transmitted to the mouth for rumination 

 that is, for a second mastication and insalivation. In the 

 second deglutition the ruminated aliment passes partly into the 

 first, partly into the second stomach, and by the demi-canal 

 partly into the third stomach, to be from the third transmitted 

 into the fourth stomach for complete digestion. Such is an 



