144 PHYSIOLOGY. 



Of Drinking. 



All carnivorous animals, as far as I know, drink by lapping up the 

 liquor with their tongues ; e. g. dogs, foxes, ferrets, &c. The reason, 

 perhaps, may be because they have very short lips and very little use 

 of them in taking their food of any kind ; for, as they are made to 

 catch animals, they must make, at once, use of their teeth ; and lips, in 

 that case, would be in the way of the teeth. 



All herbivorous animals, as far as I know, such as cows, horses, sheep, 

 &c, suck up the liquid in the same manner as the humankind; but the 

 goat sometimes sucks and sometimes laps. These animals make use of 

 their lips to catch and conduct their food between their teeth. 



I believe that the mouths of herbivorous and granivorous animals 

 have many more [mucous follicles], or are much more glandular, than 

 [those of] other animals. 



Of the Oesophagus. 

 Those animals that chew their food, such as most granivorous, have 

 a smaller oesophagus than such as only mash or squeeze it, such as the 

 carnivorous, and still smaller those that swallow it whole, such as fishes 

 and many birds. According to the teeth is, in some degree, the size of 

 the oesophagus. 



Of the Stomach. 



The apparatus necessary for the operation of digestion is as simple as 

 anything we can well conceive. It only requires a bag or cavity fit to 

 contain the substance to be digested, joined with the power of furnishing 

 the fluid capable of digesting or animalizing the said substance. In 

 such a light, it is only to be considered as a gland with a cavity. But 

 it was necessary that there should be some part added to furnish this 

 bag with materials to be digested ; for which purpose there are, in some, 

 arms ; in others, both arms and teeth, &c. 



Besides the simplicity of the apparatus for the operation of digesting, 

 there is another apparatus added to fulfil the intention, which is the 

 system for absorbing the animalized parts for the nourishment of the 

 same bag ; and added to this power of secretion and absorption, is the 

 power of throwing out of the bag the indigestible parts, acting as a 

 kind of excretory duct*. 



From this account, nothing can be more simple ; however, it com- 

 pletes a whole animal, and nothing more can be necessary for the sup- 

 port of such an animal ; but when we come to such stomachs as have 

 parts superadded for other purposes than the above, then we find that 



* Nothing more is necessary to complete an animal, than the power of continuing 

 the species, which power is superadded to this bag in many. 



