tit 



RUM1NANTH. 



UUMINANTIA. 



, 



halberd, which the shape of it* leaves resembles. It belong* to the 

 natural order Polyyonatctr. Most of the species of thi* genua are 

 well known as troublesome weed* to the agriculturist, under the 

 name of Docks and Sorrels. Some of them have been used in modi- 

 i-inr. but their incomplete flowers aud inelegant appearance have 

 caused their almost entire neglect in the garden. The essential 

 characters of the genus are: Calyx with 6 sepals, the outer 3 slightly 

 coherent, the inner one* enlarged after flowering ; stamens 6 ; styles 

 3, reflexed; stigmata 3 and c-Uft; fruit a 3-cornered nut, with a 

 lateral embryo and superior radicle. In the descriptions of this genus 

 by botanists, the three inner sepals are often designated as corolla, 

 but it is more consistent with what we know of the general structure 

 of the order Potygonacta to refer it to the apetalous or incomplete 

 sub-class of Exogens, and thus to consider the flower of Rmntx as 

 destitute of corolla. Rumtjc is nearly allied to Jl/uuni, but may be 

 distinguished from that genus by its 3-cornered carpels not having 

 wings, and by the embryo of the seed being lateral, not central as in 

 JHeua, The wings that are observed upon the fruit of some species 

 of Rumex are produced by the calyx. 



R. acttota. Common Sorrel, is known by its granular valves, dioe- 

 cious flowers, oblong awl-shaped leaves, with converging (often 

 notched) lobes. It is indigenous in this country, and it is also com- 

 mon in meadows and grassy pastures throughout Europe, from Lapland 

 to Greece. It flowers early in June. The leaves are used in decoc- 

 tion as a febrifuge. 



R. kj/drolapathum, Great Water-Dock, is distinguished by having 

 sepals petaloid, nearly entire, unequally tuberculated ; lanceolate 

 leaves acute at each end ; almost leafless whorls. It is found growing 

 in marsh-land ditches, stagnant waters, and the margins of great 

 rivers throughout Europe, as well as in North America from Pennsyl- 

 vania to Virginia. It is by far the largest and most conspicuous of 

 our indigenous docks ; flowering from July to August. This seems 

 to have been the plant known under the name of Jfarba Britannica 

 to Pliny (xxv., c. 3, 8), Galen, and others, and which was employed, 

 on account of its astringent properties, in various diseases in which 

 those remedies are indicated. 



II critput, Curled Dock, is n common weed all over Europe. It 

 ha* a tapering yellowish root Stem two or three feet high, angular, 

 furrowed, somewhat zigzag, smooth to the touch, panicled, and leafy. 

 Leaves lanceolate-acute, strongly undulated, and crisped at the edges, 

 smooth, of a lightish green-colour, the radical ones on long stalks, the 

 uppermost narrower and nearly sessile. Clusters of numerous rather 

 crowded tufUs or whorls, of drooping pale-green flowers, in the lower 

 part leafy. The nut contracted at each end, with three blunt or 

 tumid angles. This common weed has the reputation of being in 

 decoction or ointment a cure for the itch ; the root, which is astringent, 

 is the part used. 



There are 13 British species described in Babington's 'Manual,' 

 which are commonly known by the names of Sorrel, or Dock. 

 Beside* the species just described, several others are used in medicine. 



R. obtuiifolitu, the root of which, in powder, is employed as a 

 dentifrice. 



/.'. alpintu, Monk's Rhubarb, the root of which is thick, fleshy, and 

 purgative. 



{ Lindley, Flora Medico.) 



UUMINANTIA, C'uvier's name for his eighth order of Mommifcrea. 

 They constitute the I'ecora of Linnaeus. 



Cuvier remarks that this is perhaps the most natural and the best 

 defined of the class ; for these niml have the air of being nearly 

 all constructed on the same model ; and the camels alone present 

 some small exceptions to the common character. [CAJIELUS ; LLAMA.] 



The first of thews characters, observes the great French zoologist, 

 is the possession of incisor teeth in the lower jaw only, and these are 

 nearly always eight in number. They arc replaced above by a callous 

 rim (bourn-let). Between the incisors and the molars is a wide space, 

 where are found, in one or two genera only, one or two canines. The 

 molars, nearly always six in number on each side of the upper and 

 lower jaws, have their crown marked with two double crescents, the 

 convexity of which is turned inwards in the upper and outwards in 

 the low. r teeth. 



The four feet are terminated by two toes and two hoofs, which 

 oppose to each other a flattened surface, so that they have the appear- 

 ance of a Dingle hoof which has been split ; whence these quadrupeds 

 have obtained the name of animals with divided or bifurcate 

 hoofs, Ac. 



Behind the hoof there are sometimes two small processes or spurs, 

 the vestiges of the Uteral fingers. The two bones of the metacarpus 

 and the meUUmis are united into a single one, the cannon bone, but 

 in some species there arc also vestiges of tbe lateral metataniaus aud 

 OMtacarpiaua, 



The name Ruminants indicates the singular faculty possessed by 

 these animals of masticating a second time their food, which they 

 return into tbe mouth after a previous deglutition, a power which is 

 tbe result of the structure of their stomachs, four of which they 

 always have. Of these stomachs tbe three first are so disposed that 

 the aliment can enter at the will of the animal into any one of the 

 three, because the oesophagus terminates at the point of commu- 

 nication. 



The First Stomach or Paunch (Rumen, Penula, Magnus Venter, In- 

 gluvies Paose of the French) is much the largest in the adult animal, 

 but not so in th recently born calf or lamb. It is divided outwards 

 into two bag-like appendages at its extremity, and it is slightly sepa- 

 rated into four parts on the inside. The internal coat of this stomach 

 is beset with innumerable flattened papilla). Here are received the 

 masses of herbage rudely broken up by the first mastication, and here 

 it is (though they sometimes, but seldom, occur in the second) that 

 the morbid concretions of a globular or elongated but rounded figure 

 are generally found. These concretions are composed of three sort* 

 of substances of hairs, of the fibrous part* of plant*, or of stony 

 matter. The first of theso are formed, particularly in the cow, by the 

 animal's own hair, or that of another cow or ox licked off and gradually 

 accumulated in the stomach. Sometimes these are hairy externally, 

 but generally they are covered with a dark polished coat. The sBga- 

 gropiUe found in the Chamois consist of vegetable macerated fibres. 

 The stony concretions have received the name of Bezoar Stones. 

 They were formerly believed to be antidotes to poisons, and to possess 

 other extraordinary virtues. 



The herbage in the state above noticed is transmitted into the 

 Second Stomach, Honey-Comb Bag, Bonnet, or King's-Hood (Ili-ti- 

 culum, Ollula Bonnet of the French), the walls of which are furnished 

 with laminx somewhat resembling the cells of bees : this, which is 

 small and globular, may be considered as on appendage of the first 

 stomach or paunch, but is distinguished from that by the elegantly 

 arranged polygonal and acute-angled cells, forming superficial cavities 

 on its internal coat Here the herbage is arrested, imbibed, and com- 

 pressed into small masses or balU, which are thence returned succes- 

 sively into the mouth for remastication. During this operation the 

 animals remain in a state of repose, 



" Some ruminating lie," 



until all the herbage swallowed has undergone the action of the molar 

 teeth a second tune. The aliment thus remasticated is transmitted 

 into the third or smallest stomach, the Mauy plus (Manyplies) (Echinus, 

 Conclave, Centipellio, Omasus, Psalterium Feuillet of the French). 

 This stomach is distinguished from the two former, both by its form, 

 which has been fancied to resemble a hedgehog rolled up (whence the 

 name Echinus), and its internal structure, the longitudinal lamina: 

 of its walls resembling in some degree the leaves of a book (whence 

 the name Feuillet). These numerous and broad duplicaturee of its 

 internal coat lie lengthwise and vary in breadth in regular alternate 

 order, amounting to some forty in the sheep, and about a hundred in 

 the cow. 



From the third stomach the food is transmitted into the fourth, the 

 Red (Abomosus, Faliscus, Veutriculus Intestinalis Caillette of the 

 French), which is next in size to the first stomach or paunch, of an 

 elongated pyriform shape, and with an internal villous coat similar to 

 that of the human stomach, with large longitudinal wrinkles. This 

 last is, so to speak, the true organ of digestion, analogous to the simple 

 stomach of ordinary animals. 



We will now proceed to inquire how this complicated machine is 

 connected together, and how it acts. 



Blumcnbach observes that the first three stomachs are connected 

 with each other, aud with a groove-like continuation of the oesophagus, 

 in a very remarkable way. The latter tube enters just where the 

 paunch and the second and third stomachs approach each other ; it is 

 then continued with the groove, which ends in the third stomach. 

 This groove is therefore open to the first stomachs, which lie to its 

 right and left But the thick prominent lips which form the margin 

 of the groove admit of being drawn together so as to form a complete 

 canal which then constitutes a direct continuation of the oesophagus 

 into the third stomach. The functions of this very singular part will 

 vary according as we consider it in the state of a groove or of a closed 

 canal In the first case, the grass, &c., is passed, after a very slight 

 degree of mastication, into the paunch as into a reservoir. Thence it 

 goes in small portions into the second stomach, from which, after a 

 further maceration, it is propelled, by a kind of autiperistaltic motion, 

 into the oesophagus, and thus returns into the mouth. It is here 

 ruminated aud again swallowed, when the groove is shut, and the 

 morsel of food, after this second mastication, is thereby conducted 

 directly into the third stomach. During the short time which it pro- 

 bably stays in this situation between the folds of the internal coat, 

 it is still further prepared for digestion, which process is completed 

 in the fourth or true digestive stomach. (Lawrence's 'Blumcnbach.') 

 In notes to the same work it is stated that tbe shutting of tbe groove 

 when the food is again swallowed after rumination supposes a power 

 of voluntary motion in this part, and indeed, it is added, the influence 

 of the will in the whole affair of rumination is incontestable. It is 

 not confined to any particular time, since the animal can delay it 

 according to circumstances when the paunch is quite full It has 

 been expressly stated of some men, who have had the power of rumi- 

 nating (instances of which arc not very rare), that it was quite volun- 

 tary with them. " I have known," continues lilumenbach, " two men 

 who ruminated their vegetable food : both assured me that they had a 

 real enjoyment in doing this, which has also been observed of others ; 

 and one of them bad the power of doing it or leaving it alone accord- 

 ing to circumstances." 



Whilst the Ruminants remain at the teat and live upou nothing but 



