CHAPTER IX 



Order VI. Ungulata 

 (Hoofed Animals) 



IT is impossible to overestimate the importance of this 

 order, if only because all the domestic animals, which 

 are used as food, are Ungulates. Among the preceding 

 animals many have been described as eatable, but it is safe 

 to assert that the ordinary reader, except in the case of hare 

 and rabbit, has never partaken of the flesh of any one of 

 them. Native trappers and even white hunters will cook 

 the best portions of an animal which they have killed, chiefly 

 because no better flesh is available; and always in thinly 

 peopled countries the natives largely supply the family larder 

 with the flesh of animals that are found in their particular 

 region. But civilised man, and even the savage more often 

 than not follows his example, rears vast numbers of cattle, 

 sheep, goats, and pigs, wherewith to meet the demand for 

 flesh, which forms an important part of the daily food. 



The Ungulates, which are all vegetable feeders except 

 the pig and the peccary, include the largest of all the 

 mammals, save only the whale and the sea elephant. All 

 the ' clean animals ' belong to the order, i.e., those which 

 ' chew the cud and divide the hoof.' So do some of 

 the animals which were ' unclean ' under the Jewish law, 

 but since we have been liberated from the Mosaic law by 

 Him who ' cleansed all meats/ they are nearly as useful to 

 us as the clean animals. Such are the swine, the horse, 

 the ass, &c. 



The name Ungulata is derived from the Latin word 



251 



