so INTRODUCTION. 



By another slight convulsive effort of the animal the pellet is made 

 to break through the floor of the canal, and is carried to the base of 

 the gullet, where it is embraced by the spiral muscles of that tube, 

 and returned to the mouth ; or it may be more correctly said that the 

 same elibrt which sends the prepared pellet from the second stomach 

 into the gullet, to be re-chewed, forces a fresh portion from the paunch 

 into the second stomach. The animal now ruminates at his leisure, 

 and the pellet having been perfectly broken doAvn by the grinding 

 action of the teeth, and softened by an additional secretion from the 

 glands of the mouth, is almost a semi-fluid mass ; and, when it is 

 a^ain swallowed, it either has not sufficient solidity to force itself 

 through the floor of the canal, or the beast does not choose that it 

 shall,\nd it passes on, over the roof of the paunch and the honey- 

 comb, and enters into the third stomach or manyplies. 



A very important hint here suggests itself with regard to medicines, 

 and which has not been sufficiently attended to by the cow-leech or 

 the veterinary surgeon. We may, to a very great extent, send medi- 

 cine into what stomach we please. We may give it in a ball, and it 

 will fall into the paunch, and thence go the round of all the stomachs ; 

 or it may be exhibited in a fluid form, and gently poured down, and 

 the greater part of.it passed at once into the third and fourth stornachs. 

 That which is meant to have a speedy action on the constitution oi 

 the disease should be given in a fluid form. That also which is par- 

 ticularly disagreeable should be thus given, otherwise it will enter 

 the paunch, and be returned again in the process of rumination, and 

 disgust the animal, and, perhaps, cause rumination to cease at once. 

 This would always be a- dangerous thing, for the food retained in the 

 paunch would soon begin to ferment, and become a new source of 

 irritation and disease.* 



The third stomach, called the manyplus or manyplies, or many- 

 leaves, is, at its base, a continuation of the canal already referred to, 

 and through which fluid food would pass at once into the fourth sto- 

 mach ; but there are suspended from its roof numerous curious leaves, 

 floating loose in the canal, furnished at the edges wdth numerous little 

 hooks,°which intercept and take up everything that may have escaped 

 the action of the teeth, and continues tO retain a solid form. The 

 general surface of these leaves is studded with little hard prominences 

 on either side, and, these rubbing against each other, the hardest food 

 is gradually reduced to a fit state for digestion. This being accomplish- 

 ed, the food arrives at last at the fourth or true digestive stomach — a 

 long pouch or bag, more abundantly supplied than any of the others 



* It has Iiowpvor bopn ascertained by experiment, that if a quantity of liquid, 

 «!nrh as linseed tea, lie ^'iven to a beast just before it is slaughtered, Ilie prcater por- 

 timi will be found in tlierunuMi. Tin; thuds, however, do not require to be runnnatcd, 

 and thrreforf tlwy are squeezed out by the action of the second stomach, and t ni3 

 pass onwards to the ihinl and fourth stomachs, whilst the solid food is returned to 

 the mouth and rc-masiieated. Even after tliis all the ruminated food do<-s not ne- 

 cessarily |.ass into the third stomach, but the harder portion again enters the rumen, 

 and is again ruminated. 



