CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 9. RUMINANTIA. 



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ORDER 9. RUMINANTIA. 



We now come to those animals which cheio the cud, and which are therefore called Ruminantia. 

 They are, of all others, those which are most useful to man : they furnish him with food, and 

 nearly all the flesh he consumes ; some serve him as beasts of burden or draught ; others with their 

 milk, their tallow, leather, horns, hair, wool, and other products. The Ruminantia were regarded 

 by Cuvier as the most natural and the best determined order of the class, for all the species which 

 compose it appear to have been constructed on the same model, the camels alone presenting some 

 inconsiderable exceptions to the general characteristics of the group. 



The first of these characteristics is that of having no incisors in the upper jaw, while the infe- 

 rior has always eight, the two outermost of which represent canines. They are replaced above 

 by a callous pad. Between the incisors and the molars is a wide space, where, in some genera, 

 there are one or two canines. The molars, almost always six in number above and below, have 

 their crown marked with two double crescents, the convexity of which is turned inward in the 

 upper, and outward in the lower jaw. The fore-feet are each terminated by two toes and by two 

 hoofs, which present a flat surface to each other, appearing as though a single hoof had been <•!• 

 hence the names that have been applied to these animals of " cloven-foot. id," "bifurcated,* 1 &c 

 Behind the hoof there are always two small spurs, which are vestiges of lateral toes. The two 

 bones of the metacarpus and metatarsus are united into a single one, designated as the ccmnonrbone, 

 but in certain species there are also vestiges of lateral, metacarpal, and metatarsal bones. 



The name Ruminantia intimates the singular faculty possessed by these animals of chewmg th- 

 cud, that is, of masticating their food a second time, it being returned to the mouth for this pur- 

 pose after the first deglutition. This faculty depends on the structure of their stomachs, which 



