7J9 



CAMELUS. 



CAMELUS. 



730 



dentary space on either side ; head long ; upper lip cleft ; nostrils slit 

 obliquely ; eyes prominent ; ears small. Neck elongated. Back with 

 fleshy bosses or hunches ; tail moderate. Toes united below. Teats 

 ventral, four in number. Hair inclining to woolly. Callosities on the 

 breast, and flexible points of the extremities. The upper lip of the 

 Camel swollen and divided, the projecting orbits of its eyes, the 

 lengthened and certainly not graceful neck, the back bossed with a 

 hump or humps, and croup comparatively weak, supported upon the 

 long and awkward-looking legs terminating in apparently dispropor- 

 tioned feet, are not materials for producing elegance of form : and 

 indeed the air of the animal is altogether grotesque ; but this 

 uncouth shape is, as we shall presently see, one of those admirable 

 examples of contrivance which must strike the most casual observer. 



The two species of Camel were well known to Aristotle, who, in his 

 ' Natural History ' (ii. 1), mentions both the Arabian and the Bactrian, 

 remarking that the latter has two humps, whereas the former has 

 but one. 



The organisation of the Camels is wonderfully adapted to their 

 habits and uses to man. The pads or sole-cushions of the spreading 

 feet are divided into two toes without being externally separated, 

 which buoy up as it were the whole bulk with their expansive 

 elasticity from sinking in the sand, on which it advanced with silent 

 step the nostrils so formed that the animal can close them at will 

 to exclude the drift sand of the parching simoom the powerful upper 

 incisor teeth for assisting in the division of the tough prickly shrubs 

 and dry stunted herbage of the desert and, above all, the cellular 

 structure of the stomach, which is capable of being converted into an 

 assemblage of water tanks, bear ample testimony to the care mani- 

 fested in the structure of this extraordinary quadruped. 



The stomach of the Camel has been well described by Sir Everard 

 Home. 



" The camel's stomach," he says, " anteriorly forms one large bag, 

 but when laid open this is found to be divided into two compart- 

 ments, on its posterior part, by a strong ridge, which passes down 

 from the right side of the orifice of the oesophagus, in a longitudinal 

 direction. This ridge forms one side of a groove that leads to the 

 orifice of the second cavity, and is continued on beyond that part, 

 becoming one boundary to the cellular structure met with in that 

 situation. From this ridge eight strong muscular bands go off at 

 right angles, and afterwards form curved lines, till they are insensibly 

 lost in the coats of the stomach. These are at equal distances from 

 each other, and, being intersected in a regular way by transverse 

 muscular septa, form the cells. This cellular structure is in the left 

 compartment of the first cavity, and there is another of a more super- 

 ficial kind on the right, placed in exactly the opposite direction, made 

 up of twenty -one rows of smaller cells, but entirely unconnected with 

 the great ridge. On the left side of the termination of the oesophagus 

 a broad muscular band has its origin from the coats of the first cavity, 

 and passes down in the form of a fold parallel to the great ridge, till 

 it enters the orifice of the second, where it takes another direction. 

 It is continued along the upper edge of that cavity, and terminates 

 within the orifice of a small bag, which may be termed the third 

 cavity. This band on one side and the great ridge on the other form 

 a canal, which leads from the oesophagus down to the cellular struc- 

 ture in the lower part of the first cavity. The orifice of the second 

 cavity, when this muscle is not in action, is nearly shut ; it is at right 

 angles to the side of the first. The second cavity forms a pendulous 

 bag, in which there are twelve rows of cells, formed by as many 

 strong muscular bands, passing in a transverse direction, and inter- 

 sected by weaker muscular bands, so as to form the orifices of the 

 cells. Above these cells, between them and the muscle which passes 

 along the upper part of this cavity, is a smooth surface, extending 

 from tBe orifice of this cavity to the termination in the third. 



" From this account it is evident that the second cavity neither 

 receives the solid food in the first instance, aa in the bullock, nor 

 does the food afterwards pass into the cavity or cellular structure. 

 The food first passes into the first compartment of the first cavity, 

 and that portion of it which lies in the recess, immediately below the 

 entrance of the oesophagus, under which the cells are situated, is kept 

 moist, and is readily returned into the mouth along the groove formed 

 for that purpose, by the action of the strong muscle which surrounds 

 this part of the stomach, so that the cellular portion of the first 

 cavity in the camel performs the same office as the second in the 

 ruminants wjth horns. While the camel is drinking, the action of 

 the muscular band opens the orifice of the second cavity at the same 

 time that it directs the water into it ; and when the cells of that 

 cavity are full, the rest runs off into the cellular structure of the first 

 cavity immediately below, and afterwards into the general cavity. 

 It would appear that camels, when accustomed to go journeys, in 

 which they are kept for an unusual number of days without water, 

 acquire the power of dilating the cells so as to make them contain a 

 more than ordinary quantity as a supply for their journey ; at least, 

 Biich is the account given by those who have been in Egypt. When 

 the cud has been chewed, it has to pass along the upper part of the 

 1 cavity before it can reach the third. How this is effected 

 wit.ln ut its falling into the cellular portion, could not, from any 

 inspection of dried specimens, be ascertained ; but when the recent 

 stomach is accurately examined the mode in which this is managed 



becomes very obvious. At the time that the cud has to pass from 

 the mouth the muscular band contracts with so much force that it 

 not only opens the orifice of the second cavity, but acting on the 

 mouth of the third brings it forward into the second, by which means 

 the muscular ridges that separate the rows of cells are brought close 

 together, so as to exclude these cavities from the canal through which 

 the cud passes." 



Sir Everard Home having stated that John Hunter did not give 

 credit to the assertion that the Camel can retain a quantity of water 

 in its stomach unmixed with the food, and capable of being recovered 

 after the animal has been killed, the following note by Dr. Patrick 

 Russell, in the Appendix to his brother's ' History of Aleppo,' is of 

 some interest : " That water, in cases of emergency, is taken from 

 the stomach of camels, is a fact neither doubted in Syria nor thought 

 strange. I never was myself in a caravan reduced to such an expe- 

 dient; but I had the less reason to distrust the report of others, 

 particularly of the Arabs, seeing that even the love of the marvellous 

 could in such a case be no inducement to invention. It may perhaps 

 be superfluous to produce the authority of an Arab historian (Beidawi), 

 who, in his account of the Prophet's Expedition to Tabuc against the 

 Greeks, relates, among other distresses of the army, that they were 

 reduced to the necessity of killing their camels for the sake of the 

 water contained in their stomachs. (Sale, ' Koran,' p. 164 ; Gibbon, 

 ' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' v. p. 245.) 



" On my return from the East Indies, in 1789, hearing accidentally 

 that my friend Mr. John Hunter had dissected a camel, and was 

 supposed to have expressed an opinion that the animal's power of 

 preserving water in its stomach was rather improbable, I took an 

 opportunity of conversing with him on the subject, when (to the best 

 of my recollection) he told me that ' he by no means drew any such 

 absolute inference from his dissection ; that he saw no reason for 

 assigning more than four stomachs to the camel, though he could 

 conceive that water might be found in the paunch little impregnated 

 by the dry provender of the desert, and readily separating or draining 

 from it.' 



" In hopes that other particulars might be found among the papers 

 of my lately-deceased friend, I applied to his brother-in-law, Mr. 

 Home, who informed me that he had examined them, but without 

 discovering any observations on the subject." (Vol. ii. p. 425.) 



" From these remarks, then, it appears that the small cavity 

 regarded by Daubenton as analogous to a reticulum, was not con- 

 sidered by Mr. Hunter as of sufficient importance to be ranked as a 

 distinct stomach ; and the water-bag must therefore, in his opinion, 

 have held the place of the honey-comb-bag in the horned ruminants. 

 And when we compare the relation of the reticulum to the rumen in 

 that tribe, with the corresponding free communication which 

 subsists between the water-bag and rumen in the camel tribe; 

 and when also we observe in both the precise correspondence in 

 the mode of communication of these two cavities with the oeso- 

 phagus and with the muscular apparatus destined to convey the 

 re-masticated food beyond their apertures into the third cavity, 

 and at the same time find an approach to the peculiar disposition of 

 the cells of the water-bag in the reticulum of some of the horned 

 ruminants, it becomes evident that the two cavities are analogous, 

 the reticulum of the camels being modified for its destined functions 

 by the greater development of the secondary cells, by the absence of 

 a cuticular lining, and by the production of the inner layer of the 

 muscular tunic, which forms the apparatus for closing the orifice of 

 the primary cells. The third cavity, therefore, which could not have 

 been recognised as a distinct compartment in the llama, and which 

 undoubtedly receives the re-masticated food in the camel, ought rather 

 to be regarded as a peculiar structure, to which nothing analogous is 

 to be found in the stomachs of the horned ruminants." 



Cells of Camel's Stomach, one-ninth of natural size. 



Here is represented the muscular arrangement provided for closing 

 the orifices of the cells so as to prevent the food from falling into 

 them. The cells themselves are exposed, bringing "into view their 

 bottoms, the muscular conformation of which enables the animal to 

 give out their contents. 



The seven callosities on the flexures of the limbs and chest, and the 

 hump on the back, seem perhaps to bear more relation to the neces- 

 sities of the animal, considered as the slave of man. These callosities 



