ORDER RUMINANTIA. 47 



from food ; they waste in strength, discharge a fetid hu- 

 mour from the glandular orifices at the back of the head ; 

 their eyes appear inflamed; they foam at the mouth, and 

 occasionally protrude the ensanguined bag already noticed ; 

 the hunches on the back waste by degrees till they collapse 

 in the form of an empty bag, and they shew the singular 

 propensity to discharge their urine upon their tail, drawn 

 for that purpose close under the legs, and then to whisk 

 it smartly over the back. Copulation is effected, by the 

 male biting the female till she is compelled to lie down, 

 or in other species to drop on the fore knees ; at this 

 period the male organs change their reversed position, and 

 assume the direction common to most other animals. The 

 females are gravid a twelvemonth, and produce only one at 

 a time ; the Calf is born with an incipient hunch, the eyes 

 open, and without the callosities on the sternum and joints, 

 which appear only as it increases in growth. It sucks a 

 whole year, insensibly learning to browse ; at the end of the 

 second year puberty commences, but four years elapse 

 before it is adult, and six or seven ere it reaches maturity. 

 According to the treatment which camels endure, their lon- 

 gevity may extend to thirty-five or forty years, but in India 

 they are considered old so early as their nineteenth. 



Buffon and others imagined that the Bactrian and Arabian 

 species were specifically the same, because, as stated by 

 Olearius, they intermix and produce a prolific breed ; but 

 this opinion is not general; and M. F. Cuvier justly ob- 

 serves, that if the fact were true, it would not singly con- 

 stitute sufficient proof of identity in the species ; and al- 

 though it must be admitted that, without the difference of 

 the hunches, there are scarce sufficient characters to dis- 

 tinguish them, still it would be necessary, before the opinion 

 of Buffon can be adopted, to shew the intermediate breed 

 proceeding from the commixture of the two species. 



Some inference of the state of their intelligence may 



