RUMINANT QUADRUPEDS. 87 



CHAPTER IX. 



RUMINANT QUADRUPEDS. 



150. OF the Ruminantia, or cud-chewing quadrupeds, 

 there are eight families: 1. Bovidae, oxen, buffaloes, etc. 

 2. Ovidae, sheep. 3. Capridae, goats. 4. Cervidae, the 

 deer tribe. 5. Moschidae, the musk-deer tribe. 6. An- 

 telopidae, antelopes. 7. Camelidaa, camels. 8. Caine- 

 lopardae, giraffes, or camelopards. 



151. No animals are so useful to man as those of this 

 order. Almost all the animal flesh which he consumes 

 comes from the Ruminants. Some of them are his beasts 

 of burden, and some supply him with various articles of 

 necessity and convenience, such as milk, tallow, hides, 

 horns, etc. Being thus necessary to man, they are dis- 

 tributed over nearly all parts of the globe. Some of 

 them, as the Reindeer of Lapland, and the Camel of 

 Arabia and Northern Africa, are confined mostly to cer- 

 tain regions ; while others, as the Ox, the Sheep, and the 

 Goat, go every where with man, except in regions which 

 are so cold as not to afford them the requisite food in 

 pasturage. 



152. The Ruminants make a very well defined order, 

 all the families agreeing in their prominent common 

 characteristics, and none of them being to any extent 

 aberrant. Of all the herbivorous animals these are the 

 most entirely confined to vegetable food. Of the Ro- 

 dents, though mostly herbivorous, there are many that 

 eat some animal food ; most of the Edentata live on in- 

 sects, and some devour flesh ; and several species even 

 of the Pachydermata have in part an animal diet. But 

 there is not one of the Ruminants that is not exclusively 

 herbivorous. Some, as the Camel and the Giraffe, are 

 formed for browsing on the leaves and young shoots of 



