ANIMALS. 519 



tend to promote digestion, the grass lias the appearance of boiled 

 s[jiiinage, but not yet sufficiently reduced, so as to make a part ot 

 the animal's nourishment ; it requires the operation of the fourth 

 Ktomach for this purpose, where it undergoes a complete mace- 

 ration, and is separated to be turned into chyle. 



But nature has not been less careful in another respect, in 

 fitting the intestines of these animals for their food. In the 

 carnivorous kinds they are thin and lean; but in ruminating 

 animals they are strong, fleshy, and well covered with fat. Every 

 precaution seems taken that can help their digestion: their 

 stomach is strong and muscular, the more readily to act upon 

 its contents ; their intestines are lined with fat, the better to 

 preserve their warmth ; and they are extended to a much greater 

 length, so as to extract every part of that nourishment which 

 their vegetable food so scantily supplies. 



In this manner are all quadrupeds of the cow, the sheep, or 

 the deer kind, seen to ruminate •, being thus furnished with four 

 stomachs, for the macerating of their food. These, therefore, 

 may most properly be called the ruminant kinds ,- although there 

 are many others that have this quality in a less observable de- 

 gree. The rhinoceros, the camel, the horse, the rabbit, the 

 marmotte, and the squirrel, all chew the cud by intervals, al- 

 though they are not furnished with stomachs like the former. 

 But not these alone, there are numberless other animals that ap- 

 pear to ruminate ; not only birds but fishes and insects. Among 

 birds are the pelican, the stork, the heron, the pigeon, and the 

 turtle ; these have a power of disgorging their food to feed their 

 young. Among fishes are lobsters, crabs, and that fish called 

 the dorado. The salmon also is said to be of this number : and, 

 if we may believe Ovid, the scarus likewise ; of which he says,' 



Of all the fish that graze beneath the flood. 

 He only ruminates his former food. 



Of insects, the ruminating tribe is still larger ; the mole, the 

 cricket, the wasp, the drone, the bee, the grasshopper, and the 

 beetle. All these animals either actually chew the cud, or seem 

 ut least to ruminate. They have the stomach composed of mus- 



1 At contra herbosa pispps laxantiir arena. 

 Ut scanis epastus solus qui ruminant escas. 



