RUMINATING ANIMALS. 223 



dantly provided, certain of subsistence, and con- 

 tent with security. 



As nature has furnished these animals with an 

 appetite for such coarse and simple nutriment, so 

 she has enlarged the capacity of the intestines to 

 take in a greater supply. In the carnivorous 

 kinds, as their food is nourishing and juicy, their 

 stomachs are but small, and their intestines short ; 

 but in these, whose pasture is coarse, and where 

 much must be accumulated before any quantity 

 of nourishment can be obtained, their stomachs 

 are large and numerous, and their intestines long 

 and muscular. The bowels of a ruminating ani- 

 mal may be considered as an elaboratory, with 

 vessels in it fitted for various transmutations. It 

 requires a long and tedious process before grass 

 can be transmuted into flesh ; and for this pur- 

 pose, nature in general has furnished such ani- 

 mals as feed upon grass with four stomachs, 

 through which the food successively passes, and 

 undergoes the proper separations. 



Of the four stomachs with which ruminant ani- 

 mals are furnished, the first is called the paunch, 

 which receives the food after it has been slightly 

 chewed ; the second is called the honeycomb, and 

 is properly nothing more than a continuation of' 

 the former : these two, which are very capacious, 

 the animal fills as fast as it can, and then lies 

 down to ruminate, which may be properly consi- 

 dered as a kind of vomiting without effort or pain. 

 The two stomachs above-mentioned being filled 

 with as much as they can contain, and the grass, 

 which was slightly chewed, beginning to swell 



