CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RUMINANTIA. 



wide orifice of communication with the second stomach, or honey-comb bag (c). Its inner walls are 

 nearly uniformly covered with a pale skin (known as mucous membrane), which is beset with 

 innumerable close-set, short, and slender processes (known as villi), resembling very much the " pile " 

 on velvet. It is this oi'gan, together with its villi, which constitutes the well-known article of food 

 termed " tripe." 



The honey-comb bag (c) is very much smaller than the paunch. It is nearly globose in shape, 

 and receives its name on account of the peculiar aiTangement of the ridges on the mucous membrane 

 which lines it, these being distributed so as to form shallow hexagonal cells all over its inner surface, 

 as seen in the figure on the previous page. 



It is situated to the right of the paunch, with which, as well as with the manyplies (d), it com- 

 municates. Running along its upper wall there is a deep groove coursing from the first to the third 

 stomach. This groove plays an important part in the mechanism of rumination ; its nature must 

 therefore be fully understood. 



Its walls are muscular, like those of the viscus with which it is associated, which allows its calibre 

 to be altered. Sometimes it completely closes round so as to become converted into a tube by the 

 apposition of its edges. At others it forms an open canal. 



The manyplies (d) is a very peculiar organ. It is globular, but most of its interior is filled up 

 with folds, or laminae, running between its orifices of communication with the second and fourth 

 stomachs. These folds are arranged very much like the leaves of a book, and very close together. They 

 are, however, not of equal depth, but form series of greater or less breadth. Their surfaces are 

 roughened by the presence of small projections or papillae. 



The reed (e) is the stomach proper, corresponding with the same organ in man. Its shape is 

 somewhat conical. The valve which partially obstructs its communication with the intestine is at the 

 left of the foregoing figure. Its walls are formed of a smooth 

 mucous membrane, which secretes gastric juice, and it is this 

 stomach that, in the manufacture of cheese, is employed to 

 curdle the milk. 



Whilst grazing, the possessor of this complicated stomach 

 fills its paunch with the imperfectly masticated food, and it is 

 not until it commences to chew the cud that any of the other 

 parts are brought into play. 



In the act of rumination, the following is the probable 

 order of events : The paunch contracts, and in so doing forces 

 some of the food into the honey-comb bag, where it is formed 

 into a bolus by the movement of its walls, and then forced 

 into the gullet, from which, by a reverse action, it reaches the 

 mouth, where it is chewed and mixed with the saliva until it 

 becomes quite pulpy, whereupon it is again swallowed. But 

 now, because it is soft and semi-fluid, it does not divaricate 

 the walls of the groove communicating with the manyplies, 

 and so, continuing on along its tubular interior, it finds its 

 way direct into the third stomach, most of it filtering between 

 the numerous laminse on its way to the fourth stomach, where 

 it becomes acted on by the gastric juice. After the re- 

 masticated food has reached the manyplies, the groove in the 

 reticulum is pushed open by a fresh bolus; and so the 

 process is repeated until the food consumed has all passed on towards the abomasum, or true digestive 

 stomach. 



There are other features also which are characteristic of the ruminating animals. Their sym- 

 metrical four-toed feet (in which the thumb on the fore and the great toe on the hind are entirely 

 absent) have the toes so proportioned that the axis of the limb runs down between the two middle 

 toes at the same time that both the inside and outside toes are much reduced in size, and lost entirely 

 in the Camel tribe, the Giraffe, and the Cabrit, 



BRAIN OF A SHEEP. 



