296 STOMACHS OF THE SHEEP. 



But the mucous coat, in addition to minute papillae, is covered 

 with elevations arranged in pentagons and sexagons of differ- 

 ent sizes, somewhat resembling a honey-comb, except that the 

 cells are larger and shallower. 



" The maniplus has the same four coats. Its floor is a 

 continuation of the esophagean canal. From its roof depend 

 many parallel folds of the cuticular coat — here thicker and 

 stronger than in the other stomachs — reaching nearly to its 

 floor. The cuticle is covered toward the edges of the folds, 

 with hard, bony processes, shaped like fangs, or cones bent in 

 a curvelinear form, and pointing toward the entrance of the 

 stomach. The interior of each fold or leaf contains muscles 

 which impart to it the power of a peculiar and forcible 

 motion. There are forty-two of these folds in the maniplus 

 of the sheep — occasionally forty-eight. They do not all 

 equally nearly approach the esophagean canal, but are 

 disposed in groups of six — one, of the central ones of each 

 nearly reaching the canal or floor of the stomach — the others 

 on each side growing shorter and shorter, so as to form a 

 series of irregular re-entering angles. 



"The abomasum is the digesting stomach, where the 

 gastric juices are secreted, and where the pultaceous food is 

 converted into chyme. It is funnel-shaped, and its lower 

 extremity connects with the intestines as shown in the cut. 

 The cuticular lining of the three preceding stomachs is 

 wanting in this. The mucous coat is disposed in the form of 

 rugm or shallow folds, arranged longitudinally with the 

 direction of the stomach, and from this membrane the 

 gastric juices are secreted. 



"The comparative size of the four stomachs will be 

 sufliciently seen in the preceding illustration. 



" Where the esophagus enters the rumen, it terminates in 

 what is called the esophagean canal, a continuation of the 

 former constituting the roof of the latter. The bottom or 

 floor of this canal is formed of divided portions or folds of the 

 upper parts of the rumen and reticulum^muscular "pillars" 

 or "lips," as they are sometimes denominated — which may 

 remain closed so that the food will pass over them into the 

 third and fourth stomachs — or they may open, permitting 

 the food to fall between them, as through a trap-door, into 

 the first and second stomachs. It is probable that the opening 

 of these lips, as food passes over them, depends somewhat 

 upon a mewanical eflfect, and somewhat upon the will of the 

 animal. Fluid and soft pultaceous food fit for immediate 



