ORDER RUMINANTIA ; GENERAL CHARACTERS. 287 



already stated, they commonly seek safety in flight when alarmed ; 

 and the structure of their bodies usually adapts them to great 

 swiftness of foot. Their legs are long in proportion to the size 

 of the trunk ; and the spinal column is very flexible ; both which 

 conditions are favourable to great activity of motion. It is for 

 the most part among the domesticated species, in which there is 

 an accumulation of flesh and fat, at the expense of muscular 

 firmness and vigour, that there is a deficiency in this respect. 

 The Ruminantia are not destitute, however, of means of attack 

 and defence, which they employ in their contests with each other, 

 or when brought to bay by their enemies. Their strong horns 

 are used by them to gore their opponents, and their heads to lift 

 and toss them ; or, presenting their hind quarters, they inflict 

 most powerful blows by kicking with their hind feet. 



257. The Ruminants, of all animals, are those which are 

 most useful to Man. They furnish him with nearly all the ani- 

 mal flesh which he consumes. Some of them serve him as beasts 

 of burden ; and others supply him with milk, tallow, hides, 

 horns, and other products most important to his comfort and 

 even to his subsistence. They are universally distributed over 

 the globe, from the equator to regions within the arctic circle, 

 being most numerous, however, between the tropics ; and this 

 wide range is essentially connected with the well-being, and 

 extensive distribution, of the Human race. From the earliest 

 periods, certain species of this order have been domesticated, and 

 have accompanied Man in his gradual diffusion over the globe ; 

 so that there is scarcely a spot where he exists (except the 

 inhospitable regions tenanted by the Greenlander and Esqui- 

 maux, which do not afford the requisite pasture, and some of 

 the islands of the Polynesian Archipelago, into which these ani- 

 mals have not yet been introduced), which is not tenanted also 

 by the Ox, the Sheep, or the Goat. Other species, again, 

 although equally subject to Man, are formed to inhabit certain 

 localities only, to which the peculiarities of their construction 

 specially adapt them ; and these have consequently not spread 

 with the others. One of these is the Rein-deer, on which the 

 inhabitants of Lapland, a country too cold for the Sheep and 



