674 



CAMEL. 



and hot sand ; and there is a similar callosity on the 

 sternum, or breast bone, which prevents injury to 

 that part when it comes in contact with the hard and 

 hot ground. There are no clavicles to the fore legs ; 

 and all the legs are articulated for motion parallel to 

 the mesial plane, so that tlie animal cannot climb, or 

 grasp between its feet. It has, however, very con- 

 siderable action of the legs in that plane in which 

 they do act; and it can, in consequence, defend itself 

 very effectually against jackalls and hyaenas, which 

 are the principal beasts of prey in its localities, both 

 by striking out with the forefeet and kicking with the 

 hind ones, the first of which motions is not so ex- 

 tensively possessed by any other ruminating animal. 

 In the use of its long legs upon ordinary occasions 

 the camel, according to our common notions of grace 

 in walking, manages its long legs a little clumsily. 

 When rising (and it is made to kneel when mounted 

 or loaded), it rises first on the hind legs, and sup- 

 ports itself whilst doing so on the callosities on the 

 fore knees or the sternum ; and while it is doing this, 

 the rider if he has not some knowledge of camel-riding, 

 is very apt to be bumped across the ears with the 

 load on the top of him. In walking, too, the rate of 

 which on the ordinary march is about three miles an 

 hour, the camel has a very jolting motion ; and it 

 requires practice before the rider can so accommo- 

 date himself to the riding as to have anything like an 

 easy seat ; but after he once acquires the habit of 

 moving in concert with his beast, his seat is very 

 secure, and by no means an unpleasant one. 



As may be seen by the figures, the whole appear- 

 ance of the camel is ragged. Its abdomen is large, 

 and so much drawn in at the flanks, as to give it an 

 appearance of weakness and constriction there, which 

 it does not in reality possess, for the bones of the 

 hind legs are, by this mean*, left much more free for 

 motion than in animals which have a more firm and 

 full appearance at that part. The neck is long and 

 bent; the eyes are large and dull; and the lips are 

 projecting, but thin and flap-like, the upper one being 

 divided, and the two lobes prehensile and capable of 

 separate motion. These moveable lobes of the lip 

 are of considerable service to the animal. They 

 serve as organs of touch, and also for compressing any 

 substance, or conveying it into the mouth. 



The nostrils are in the form of slits, which the 

 animal can open and shut at pleasure ; a species of 

 action which is of great service to it when the wind 

 blows strongly and loaded with drifting sand, as it 

 often is in these deserts. The form of the enlarged 

 sole of the foot, which has been already mentioned, 

 is very convenient for marching on the loose sand, as 

 it has the shape of an oval cushion, which is less apt 

 to sink than any other form. The height, too, to 

 which the feet are lifted, and which occasions the 

 bumping motion, is of great advantage in walking 

 over the loose sand ; and it is worthy of remark 

 that the ostrich, which is an inhabitant of similar 

 places, has the feet of an analogous structure, and lifts 

 them in a similar manner. 



One of the most singular external characters of 

 the camel, is the hump on the back, which is double 

 in the Bactrian camel, and single in the Arabian one 

 or dromedary ; 'this hump consists of the same kind 

 of substance which is found in humps upon some of 

 the genus bos, in some temperate, but more espe- 

 cially in warm regions, as in the Braminy bulls of 

 India, both in the larger and smaller varieties. It is 



an accumulation of a peculiar species of fat, which is 

 not liable to be melted, or very much acted upon by 

 the great heat to which the animal is exposed. It 

 consists chiefly of stearine, or hard fat, which is not 

 reduceable to liquid oil at any temperature to which 

 the animal can be naturally exposed ; and it is not a 

 deformity produced by servitude, as has been foolishly 

 said, neither is it in itself of any use in the economy 

 of the animal. It is a store of nourishment, most 

 wisely provided by nature against the day of want, 

 to which the camel in a wild state would be often 

 exposed, and from which he is not entirely exempted 

 in a state of domestication ; and a camel can exist 

 for a considerable .time upon its own hump without 

 any other food, nor does it die of want until that ' 

 hurnp is entirely absorbed, and applied to the genera) 

 nourishment of the whole system. 



Animals which exist chiefly upon vegetable matter, 

 and which are subject to seasonal vicissitudes in 

 their supply of food, all make accumulations of fat on 

 sooje part of their bodies, and have some provision 

 or other, against the season in which their outward 

 supply of food fails ; and their tendency to do this is 

 exactly in proportion to the need they have for it, 

 considering the average in the seasons of those places 

 in which they inhabit. The parts of the body in 

 which this accumulation is made, and the consistency 

 of the accumulated substance, are both very impor- 

 tant points in the geography of animals, which is one 

 of the most interesting departments of their whole 

 history. If the animal winters in cold latitudes, as is 

 the case with the bears, then the accumulation of fat 

 is generally distributed over the surface ; and it is of 

 a soft and oily nature, or what is termed lard. If, on 

 the other hand, the animal inhabits the very warm 

 latitudes, where the season of want is one of heat and 

 drought, the accumulation of fat, as in the hump of 

 the catnel, contains a maximum of crystallisable fat, 

 and is accumulated upon some particular part of the 

 body, generally that part in which it can be carrier 

 with least inconvenience to the animal, and least inter~ 

 ruption to any of its working structures. In the inter- 

 mediate latitudes, where there is a supply of vegetable 

 food all the year round, the distribution of fat is more 

 general through the body of the animal, both externally 

 and internally, accumulating on the kidneys, on the 

 mesentery, and often on the surfaces of the muscles, 

 and even upon those of the bundles of fibres of which 

 the muscles are made up ; but in animals which do 

 not accumulate fat on any particular part of the body, 

 as many do in a hump, a dewlap, on the rump, or 

 even on the tail as is the case of some species of 

 sheep, then the accumulation of fat is always more 

 internal as we advance into warmer latitudes. Thus 

 the sheep and pigs of France never, by any feeding, 

 acquire the same external plumpness as those of 

 England; and the difference is so great, that those 

 of some places of France, even when in the very best 

 condition to which they can be brought, would hardly 

 be marketable in this country ; but when they are 

 opened they are found to contain more fat internally 

 than ours do. 



If we consider the ruminating animals only, the 

 range of which in latitude may be considered as 

 extending from the reindeer to the camel, we have a 

 regular gradation in the kind of fat, which is no bad 

 indication of the native localities of the animals ; it 

 being understood that the genera which are found 

 nearest the pole keep more and more to the moun- 



