&0 IJTTRODUCTION. 



By another sligTft coTivulsive effort of the animal the pellet is made 

 to break through the floor of the canal, and is carried to the base of 

 the gullet, \yhere it is embraced by the spiral muscles of that tube, 

 and returned to the mouth ; or it may be more correctly said that the 

 same effort which sends the prepared pellet from the second stomach 

 into the gullet, to be re-chewed, forces a fresh portion from the paunch 

 into the second stomach. The animal now ruminates at his leisure, 

 and the pellet having b»en perfectly broken down by the grinding 

 action of the teeth, and softened by an additional secretion from the 

 glands of the mouth, is almost a semi-fluid mass ; and, when it is 

 again swallowed, it either has not sufficient solidity to force itself 

 through the floor of the canal, or the beast does not choose that it 

 shall, and it passes on, over the roof of the paunch and the honey- 

 comb, and enters into the third stomach or many plies. 



A very important hint here suggests itself with regard to medicines, 

 and which has not been sufficiently attended to by the cow-leech or 

 the veterinary surgeon. We may, to a very great extent, send medi- 

 cine into what stomach we please. We may give it in a ball, and it 

 will fall into the paunch, and thence go the round of all the stomachs ; 

 or it may be exhibited in a fluid form, and gently poured down, and 

 the greater part of it passed at once into the third and fourth stomachs. 

 That which is meant to have a speedy action on the constitution ot 

 the disease should be given in a fluid form. That also which is par* 

 ticularly disagreeable should be thus given, otherwise it will enter 

 the paunch, and be returned again in the process of rumination, and 

 disgust the animal, and, perhaps, cause rumination to cease at once. 

 This would always be a dangerous thing, for the food retained in the 

 paunch would soon begin to ferment, and become a new source of 

 irritation and disease.* 



The third stomach, called the manyplus or manyplies, or many- 

 leaves, is, at its base, a continuation of the canal already referred to, 

 and through which fluid food would pass at once into the fourth sto- 

 mach ; but there are suspended from its roof numerous curious leaves, 

 floating loose in the canal, furnished at the edges with numerous little 

 hooks, which intercept and take up everything that may have escaped 

 the action of the teeth, and continues to retain a solid form. The 

 general surface of these leaves is studded with little hard prominences 

 on either side, and, these rubbing against each other, the hardest food 

 is gradually reduced to a fit state for digestion. This being accomplish- 

 ed, the food arrives at last at the fourth or true digestive stomach — a 

 long pouch or bag, more abundantly supplied than any of the others 



* It has, liowever, been ascertained hy experiment, that if a quantity of liquid, 

 such as linseed tea, be given to a beast just before it is slaughtered, the greater por- 

 tion will be found in the rumen. The fluids, however, do not require to he ruminated, 

 and therefore they are squeezed out by the action of the second stomach, and thus 

 pass onwards to the third and fourth stomachs, whilst the solid food is returned to 

 the mouth and re-masiicafed. Even after this all the ruminated food does not ne- 

 cessarily pass into the third stomach, but the harder portion again enlera the rumen, 

 and is a<:aiii ruminated. 



