198 THE VITAL FUNCTIONS. 



the food previous to rumination, a third for 

 receiving it after it has undergone this process, 

 and a fourth for effecting its digestion. Rumi- 

 nants without horns, as the Camel, Dromedary, 

 and Lama, have only one preparatory stomach 

 before rumination, answering the purpose of the 

 two first stomachs of the bullock ; a second, 

 which I shall presently notice, and which takes 

 no share in digestion, being employed merely as 

 a reservoir of water; a third, exceedingly small, 

 and of which the office has not been ascertained ; 

 and a fourth, which receives and digests the food 

 after rumination. Those herbivorous animals 

 which do not ruminate, as the Horse and Ass, 

 have only one stomach ; but the upper portion 

 of it is lined with cuticle, and appears to per- 

 form some preparatory office, which renders the 

 food more easily digestible by the lower portion 

 of the same cavity.* 



The remarkable provision above alluded to 

 in the Camel, an animal which nature has 

 evidently intended as the inhabitant of the 

 sterile and arid regions of the East, is that of 

 reservoirs of water, which, when once filled, 

 retain their contents for a very long time, and 

 may minister not only to the wants of the animal 

 that possesses it, but also to those of man. The 

 second stomach of the Camel has a separate 



* Home, Phil. Trans. 8vo. 1806, p. 370. 



