STOMACH OF THE SHEEP. 345 



for his trunk, which when menaced he retracts between them, 

 employing them at the same time to repel an aggressor. Thus 

 in every deviation from the ordinary forms of dentition, we 

 find that the attainment of some useful purpose was in view. 



An examination of the digestive organs of the several orders 

 of the mammalia, shows that in every case they are no less 

 beautifully adapted to the peculiar food of the animal than the 

 construction of the dental apparatus. The carnivora feeding 

 on aliment which requires but little elaboration to convert it 

 into nourishment, the whole process of digestion appears to be 

 as rapid as possible, the stomach is simple and almost straight, 

 the intestines short, and without any structure to retard the 

 passage of the food. The ruminants, on the contrary, living on 

 crude vegetable matters, containing but a small quantity of nu- 

 tritious particles in proportion to their bulk, required a far more 

 complicated alimentary canal for the elaboration of their food. 



Composite Stomach of the Sheep. 

 oesophagus. / duodenum. 



Here, therefore, the stomach consists not of one but of four 

 distinct cavities. The first compartment, or paunch (6), is the 

 largest of the four stomachs, and in the typical species, such as 

 the sheep or ox, its internal surface is densely beset with pro- 

 minent and pedunculated villosities. The second stomachal 

 viscus, or the reticulum (c), is of much smaller dimensions than 

 the paunch, and forms a kind of cul-de-sac between it and the 

 third cavity. It is distinguished internally by the presence of 

 a multitude of polygonal cells, and from this circumstance has 

 been vulgarly denominated the honeycomb bag. 



