164 MAMMALIA. 



Of all animals, the Ruminantia are the most useful to man. He can 

 eat it all, and it is from that he procures all the flesh which constitutes 

 his aliment. Some serve him as beasts of burden, others with their milk, 

 their tallow, leather, horns, and other substances. The two first genera 

 have no horns. 



Camelus, Linn. 



The camels approximate to the preceding order rather more than the 

 others. They not only always have canines in both jaws, but they also 

 liave two pointed teeth implanted in the incisive bone, six inferior incisors, 

 and from eighteen to twenty molars only ; peculiarities which, of all the 

 Ruminantia, they alone possess, as well as that of having the scaphoid 

 and cuboid bones of the tarsus separate. Instead of the large hoof flat- 

 tened on its internal side, which envelopes the whole inferior portion of 

 each toe, and which determines the figure of the common cloven foot, they 

 have but one small one, which only adheres to the last phalanx, and is 

 symmetrically formed like the hoofs of the pachydermata. Their tumid 

 and cleft lip, their long neck, prominent orbits, weakness of the crupper, 

 and the disagreeable proportions of their legs and feet, render them some- 

 what deformed, but their extreme sobriety, and the faculty they possess 

 of passing several days without drinking, make them of the highest im- 

 portance. 



The faculty just mentioned probably results from the large masses of 

 cells which cover the sides of their paunch, in which water is constantly 

 retained or produced. The other Ruminantia have nothing of the kind. 



The camel urinates backwards, but the direction of the penis changes 

 in coitu, which is effected with much difficulty, and while the female lies 

 down. In the rutting season a fetid humour oozes from their head. 



Camelus, Cuv. 



Camels, properly so called, have the two toes united below nearly to 

 the point by a common sole, and the back furnished with lumps of fat. 

 They are large animals of the old continent, of which two species are 

 known, both completely reduced to a domestic state.* 



C. bactrianus, E. ; Buff. XI. xxii. (The Two-Humped Camel). 

 Originally from central Asia, and which is found much less southerly 

 than the 



C. dromedarius, L. ; Buff. XI. ix. (The One-Humped Camel). 

 Which has spread from Arabia into all the north of Africa, a great 

 part of Syria, Persia, &c. 



The first is the only one employed in Turkistan, Thibet, &"c. ; it 

 is sometimes led as far as lake Baical. The second is well known 

 for crossing the desert, and as the only means of communication 

 between the countries which border on it. 



* Pallas, on the authority of the Buchares and Tartars, states, that in the deserts 

 of central Asia, wild camels are still to be found; we must recollect, however, that 

 the Kahnucs arc in the habit of giving freedom to all sorts of animals from a reli- 

 gious principle. 



