LESSON 50.] NUTRITION IN THE MAMMALIA. 179 



dreading assaults from their foes, the Feline animals, go to the pas- 

 tures in flocks, for mutual protection. Here they will be seen busily 

 engaged in cropping the herbage only, and Fw. 285. 



when their hunger is satisfied, they hie 

 away to secure and shady retreats, to di- 

 gest, at their leisure, the material they 

 have provided for that purpose. 



777. In a domesticated state they have 

 no cause for fear, and as soon as they feel 

 satisfied, they throw themselves lazily and 

 listlessly on the grass, to commence the 

 process known as " rumination," or " chew- 

 ing the Cud." Digestive sacs of the ruminant 



778. While steadily engaged in crop- 

 ping the grass, the crude food is passed down the oesophagus (a) 

 to the first stomach, which is by far the largest (b). 



779. This is called the ingluvies, or paunch, and is simply a 

 huge collecting bag, analogous to the crop of a bird, or an insect. 

 The food lies macerating in the paunch, in a fluid, apparently of no 

 chemical significance, secreted by the organ. 



780. During the period the animal has been collecting grass, 

 some of it has been squeezed out of the over-distended paunch, into 

 the second stomach, or reticulum, so called from the honeycomb-like 

 structure of its interior. This stomach (c) is small, its internal sur- 

 face consisting only of honeycomb cells ; into these the morsels of 

 grass expressed from the paunch go, and by the action of the muscu- 

 lar coat of the stomach, aided by a little water generally found in 

 the cells, the grass becomes converted into a round ball. 



781. When all is prepared for rumination, one of these balls is 

 suddenly jerked up the oesophagus into the mouth, and submitted, 

 for the first time, to the action of the grinding teeth. 



782. These organs are of peculiar structure, as will be hereafter 

 seen ; a most lengthened process of mastication now commences, and 

 contemporaneously the food is thoroughly insalivated from the copious 

 secretion of the salivary glands, which are always well developed in 

 these animals. Thus the vitality of the grass is perfectly destroyed, 

 and it is at last fitted to descend the oesophagus, a second time, 

 with its tissues loosened, and prepared for the ultimate process of 

 resolution by the stomach proper. It descends the oesophagus, but 

 it passes neither into the first nor second stomach, but, by means of 

 two thick muscular folds placed across the opening of communication, 



