182 . ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. [LESSON 52. 



or filament), fungiform (mushroom shaped), and the circumvallatce 

 (surrounded by a ditch). All these forms are found without any ad- 

 dition in the feline animals, but in them the filiform papillae are 

 modified to subserve the purposes of teeth. 



792. In a state of nature, these animals are subject to " a feast 

 and a fast," and frequently have to endure long intervals of absti- 

 nence from food ; whenever it is present, therefore, they make the 

 most of it; feeding to repletion, the first day or two, if the prey be 

 large, till at length the carcass is demolished, and nothing remains 

 but the bones. These are not yet reduced to the condition of a skel- 

 eton ; the attachments of the several muscles, and their tendinous 

 terminations, yet remain firmly connected to them. 



793. Still they are much too short for the teeth to grasp, 

 and the animal must now depend upon the kindly offices of the 

 tongue, or starve. 



794. It proceeds, therefore, to lick the bones, and the flesh peels 

 off at every effort ; this long, soft, flexuous organ can, and does, pen- 

 etrate all the cavities and sinuosities of a bone, especially at the ar- 

 ticulating surfaces ; nothing can resist its power ; even the periosteum 

 (the membrane that tightly covers a bone) is found to submit, and 

 all that remains, when the process of licking is over, is a white, per- 

 fectly clean, well-prepared skeleton. 



795. Those persons who have suffered their hands to be licked by 

 an affectionate domestic cat, will have an idea of the potency of this 

 organ ; nay, they must be conscious that if they could endure the af- 

 fectionate demonstration for only a very few minutes, the cuticle 

 would be abraded, and blood would freely flow from the true skin. 



LESSOR LII. 



NUTRITION IN THE MAMMALIA, CONCLUDED. 



796. In order to make the foregoing statement fully compre- 

 hended, a figure is given of a Cat's tongue (Fig. 288), copied from a 

 preparation. The tongue of a Lion is in every respect precisely simi- 

 lar, but larger. The filiform papillae (a) are found from the apex, 

 where they are interspersed with the fungiform (5), to about one-third 

 of the length of the tongue, and at this point they increase in size, and 



