KUMINATION. 



139 



lieving Youatt's description of the position of the rumen, and 

 much less the action he attributes to this stomach or the re- 

 ticul am, in the regurgitation of food. I have before said, that 

 the contents of the two first stomachs are subjected to a 



Fip. 72. 



churning action, and at Fig. 73 it is evidenc that the ten- 

 dency is for the food to strike forwards against the pillars of 

 the oesophagus; as it presses by its own weight, and the 

 slight degree of impulse which the rumen gives to it, against 

 the canal, there is a contraction of the diaphragm and abdo- 

 minal muscles, which especially aid in the passage upwards of 

 the liquids contained in the reticulum, as well as engaging 

 a portion of the contents of the rumen in the lower end of 

 the gullet, from which it is carried up by an antiperistaltic 

 movement. Fluorens proved that the diaphragm and abdo- 

 minal muscles were essential to the act of regurgitation. He 



