148 CATTLE. 



ox's fore]] ead requires much nervous influence, and a great supply 

 of blood ; and, therefore, there are two foramina, or holes one for the 

 escape of the nerve, and the other of the artery. Each of these, 

 however, must be of considerable bulk, and they have to run over 

 a surface, where they are exposed to much danger. There is pro- 

 vision made for this — a curious groove in which they run for some 

 distance above and below, securely defended by the ridge of bone on 

 either side, until they give off various branches, and are so diminished 

 in bulk, that they are comparatively out of the reach of injury. If 

 the nerve or the artery were injured, the nervous influence and the 

 blood would be supplied by other ramifications. 



THE ARCH UNDER WHICH THE TEMPORAL MUSCLE PLAYS. 



A strong process of the frontal bone goes to contribute to the 

 formation of the zygomatic arch, under which the head of the lower 

 jaw moves and is defended ; and the act of mastication is thus 

 securely performed. In the ox the teeth are never weapons of 

 off"ence ; he may gore and trample upon his enemy, but he does not 

 bite him : and his food is leisurely gathered in the first imperfect mas- 

 tication, and still more lazily and sleepily ground down in rumination ; 

 this arch therefore need not be, and is not, capacious and strong. It is, 

 from situation and the general shape of the head, exempt from vio- 

 lence and injury ; and therefore the arch not only does not project 

 for the purpose of strength, and to give room for a mass of muscle 

 that is not wanted, and the frontal bone does not enter into its com- 

 position at all. (See g and e, p. 143.) 



THE HORNS. 



The froncals in the ox in their prolongation make the horns. The 

 foetus of three months has no horn ; during the fourth month it may 

 be detected by a little irregularity of the frontal bone, and by the 

 seventh month is evident to the eye elevating the skin. It now 

 gradually forces its way through the cutis or skin, which it has 

 accomplished at the time of birth ; and, continuing to grow, detaches 

 the cuticle or scarf skin from the cutis, and carries it with it ; and 

 this gradually hardening over it, forms the rudiment of the future 

 covering of the bone of the horn. Beneath this cuticle the horn soon 

 begins to form ; but it continues covered until the animal is twelve 

 or fifteen months old, giving a skinny roughness, which then peals ott", 

 showing the shining and perfect horn. The horn then is composed 

 of an elongation of the frontal bone, cov^ered by a hard coating, origi- 

 nally of a gelatinous nature. Its base is a continuation of the frontal 

 bone, and is hollow or divided into numerous cells, (a and c, p. 144,) 

 all communic iting with each other, and lined by a continuation of the 

 membrane of the nose. 



J 



