130 



RUMINATION. 



powerful prehensile tongue, long and thick tufts of grass are 

 rapidly carried into the mouth and swallowed. However 

 tough the herbage, it is but very slightly broken down by 

 one or two strokes of the molar teeth. It then passes into 

 the capacious compartments, which receive the name of 

 stomachs, but are in reality pouches of the oesophagus, and 

 situated between the latter tube and the true stomach. Ke- 

 taining, however, their common name " stomachs," they are 

 three in number, in addition to the true stomach, and Chau- 

 veau states that the average capacity of the whole is 250 

 French litres, that is to say, about the same number of Eng- 

 lish quarts. The first cavity, that of the paunch or rumen, 

 (see Fig. 68, A B), is by far the largest, and constitutes about 



Fig. 68. (CoLTN.) 



nine-tenths of the space represented by the interior of the 

 ruminants' stomachs; the second, D, is called the honey- 



