CHAKAOTEKISTICS OP THE DIGESTIVE APPARATUS. 



223 



and twice as long, from the fact that the increased complexity of the 

 stomach furnishes the necessary differences for the digesting of the 

 food the caecum is smooth and devoid of longitudinal and transverse 

 bands (Fig. 80). Its free extremity is blunt, rounded, and directed back- 

 ward, and floats free in the abdomen, while its other extremity, having 

 received the insertion of the ileum, is continuous with the colon, which 

 also is free from bands, and soon becomes constricted, and then, preserv- 

 ing about the same diameter throughout, is arranged in an elliptical 

 coil between the folds of the mesentery. In the ox there is no distinction 

 between the great and floating colon, as in the horse. The total length of 

 the large intestine in the ox, from the caecum to the rectum, is about 

 thirty-six feet, but its capacity is much less than in the horse. 



Further details as to the functions and structure, of the different 

 parts of the alimentary canal in the various domestic animals will be 



Fig. 80. Cjecum and Origin of Colon of an Ox, Inflated. (Strangeways.) 



A, terminal portion of the ileum ; B, ciBcum ; C, origin of colon. 



given during the consideration of the subject of digestion. So far the 

 aim has been merely to indicate, in a general way, the adaptability of 

 the digestive organs to the character of the food. 



The following tables, compiled by Colin, represent the different 

 comparative dimensions and capacities of different parts of the ali- 

 mentary canal in the domestic animals. They offer confirmation of the 

 statement already made that the functional activity of the stomach and 

 digestive tube being in inverse ratio, in those herbivora with capacious, 

 complex stomachs the intestinal tube will always be less developed than 

 in the monogastric herbivora, where the role of the stomach in digestion 

 is secondary to that of the intestine. 



