16 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



sheep may be has never been accurately determined by any 

 authoritative evidence, but it is very probable that if well 

 cared for a sheep may be kept with profit until twenty years 

 old, and the mutton even then may be as tender and good or 

 better than a four year old sheep that has been ill cared for. 



The lips of the sheep are so peculiar as to deserve men- 

 tion. They are extremely mobile, thin, and take an active 

 part in the gathering of the food. The upper lip does not 

 show any mullle, which is the broad patch seen in the ox, 

 and which is furnished with active excretory apparatus, 

 seen at times by the conspicuous drops of perspiration ex- 

 uded by it in warm weather. This is absent in the sheep, 

 and the upper lip is thin and divided by a fissure so that 

 each half of the lip may be moved independently of the 

 other. 



The teeth are really a part of the digestive system as 

 they grind the food along with the secretion of the glands 

 of the mouth, and which are known as the salivary glands. 

 These are placed within the lips, under the tongue, and along 

 the jaws. They secrete apeculiar fluid which has the effect, 

 of changing the starch of the food into sugar, as well as 

 aiding in the digestion of it in the stomach. In all the rumi- 

 nants these glands are large and exude a copious amount 

 of saliva, especially during the act of rumination, by which 

 the food, having been coarsely ground at the first, is 

 macerated in the first stomach and then regurgitated to the 

 mouth where it is further ground at pleasure and then 

 passes on to the second and third stomachs where it is again 

 ground and macerated between the folds of the manyplies, 

 after which it goes to the true digestive stomach, the fourth 

 compartment, and having been digested there it is finally 

 disposed of in the intestines. 



THE SHEEP'S STOMACH. 



The changes which the food of all the ruminating ani- 

 mals undergoes are mostly all accomplished after it has 

 been swallowed, and has been subjected to the action of the 

 first and second stomachs. After this preparation the food 

 is formed by a peculiar moulding apparatus into long pellets, 

 which are forced back into the mouth and are there sub- 

 jected to the solvent influence of the saliva, copiously se- 



