58 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



softened mass is squeezed into balls, and here it is 

 further moistened, for all the water the animal takes 

 passes directly into the second stomach. When the balls 

 have been thus formed, they are forced back into the 

 mouth ; and when the animal lies in peace and quietness 

 on the grass, it half-closes its eyes, looks as if it were 

 thinking over the affairs of the whole nation, and then, 

 by the peculiar motion of its jaws, which work from side 

 to side, it grinds up the food which has thus been 

 prepared. You must know that although there is a 

 certain amount of nourishment in the vegetables we use 

 for food, this is only of service to us when the vegetable 

 has been soaked and heated, and therefore we boil them ; 

 but the ox eats the grass, soaks it, masticates it, and it 

 goes towards forming its flesh ; then we eat that flesh, and 

 so receive the benefit of all the nourishment that can be 

 extracted from .the vegetable food the useful animal has 

 eaten. This process, then, of " turning the matter over " 

 is called rumination, or chewing the cud. 



After the mass has been well ground down by the 

 teeth, it is again swallowed, and this time it passes into 

 the third stomach, called the many-plies (ci) which, as you 

 will see in the drawing, has a number of folds and 

 thence it passes into the rennet, or fourth stomach (<?), 

 in which the true digestion takes place ; and it is on 

 account of the peculiar acid which exists in the mem- 

 brane of this organ, that it is employed in dairies to 

 obtain curd from milk in the process of cheese-making. 



The animals comprehended in this group are by far 

 too numerous for illustration, and, therefore, two only arc 

 given ; namely, a Devon Ox (Fig. 19), and a Fat-tailed 

 sheep (Fig. 20). This last-named animal is a native of 

 Syria and Egypt, but is found in many other parts of the 

 world. In this species the fat accumulates to such an 

 extent that the tail weighs from fifty to eighty, or, as 



