RUMINANTIA. 
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two bones of the metacarpus and metatarsus are united into a single one, designated the 
cannon bone ; but in certain species there are also vestiges of lateral metacarpal and metatarsal 
bones. 
The name Buminantia intimates the singular faculty possessed by these animals, of masti- 
cating their food a second time, it being returned to the mouth after the first deglutition. 
This faculty depends on the structure of their stomachs, which are always four in number, 
the first three of which are so disposed that the food may enter into either of them, the 
oesophagus terminating at the point of communication. 
The first and laj-gest stomach is named the paunch j it receives a large quantity of vegetable 
matters coarsely bruised by the first mastication. From this it passes into the second, termed 
the honey-comb bag, the parietes of which are laminated like the cells of Bees. This second 
stomach, very small and globular, seizes the food, and moistens and compresses it into little 
pellets (or cuds), which afterwards successively return to the mouth to be rechewed. The 
animal remains at rest during this operation, which lasts until all the herbage first taken into 
the paunch has been subjected to it. The aliment thus remasticated descends directly into 
the third stomach, termed the feuillet, on account of its parietes being longitudinally lami- 
nated somewhat like the leaves of a book, from which it descends into the fourth or caillette, 
the coats of which are wrinkled, and which is the true organ of digestion, analogous to the 
simple stomach of animals in general. In the young of the ruminants, while they continue to 
subsist on the milk of the mother, the caillette is the largest of the four. The paunch is only 
developed by receiving great quantities of herbage, which finally give it its enormous volume. 
Tliese animals have the intestinal canal very long j but there are few enlargements in the 
great intestines. The coecum is likewise long and tolerably smooth. Their fat hardens more 
by cooling than that of other quadrupeds, and even becomes brittle. It is commonly termed 
tallow. The udder is placed between the thighs. 
The Ruminants, of all animals, are those which are most useful to Man. They furnish him 
with food, and nearly all the flesh that he consumes. Some serve him as beasts of burden, 
others with their milk, their tallow, leather, horns, and other products. 
The two first genera are without horns. 
The Camels {Camelus, Lin.),-— 
Approximate the preceding order rather more than the others. They have not only always canines in 
both jaws, but have also two pointed teeth implanted in the intermaxillary bones, six inferior incisors, 
and from eighteen to twenty molars only ; peculiarities which, of all the Ruminantia, they alone 
possess, besides which the scaphoid and cuboid bones of the tarsus are separated. Instead of the 
great hoof, fiat at its inner side, which envelopes the whole inferior portion of each toe, and which 
determines the figure of the ordinary cloven foot, they have but one small one, which only adheres to 
the last phalanx, and is symmetrically formed like the hoofs of the Pachydermata. Their tumid and 
cleft lip, their long neck, projecting orbits, weakness of the crupper, and the disagreeable proportions 
of their legs and feet, render them in some sort deformed ; but their extreme sobriety, and the faculty 
they possess of passing several days without drinking, cause them to be of the highest utility. 
It is probable that this last faculty results from the great masses of cells which cover the sides of 
their paunch, in which water is constantly retained or produced. The other Ruminants have nothing 
of the kind. 
Camels urinate backward, but the direction of the penis changes during copulation, which is effected 
with considerable difficulty, and while the female hes down. In the rutting season a fetid humour 
issues from the head. 
The Camels, properly so called, — 
Have the two toes united below, almost to the point, by a common sole, and humps of fat upon the 
back. They are large animals of the Eastern Continent, of which two species are known, both of them 
completely domesticated.* 
• Pallas states, on the authority of the Bucharians and Tartars, ] may remark that the Calmucks are in the habit of liberating all sorts 
that there are wild Camels in the deserts of Central Asia ; but we I of animals from a religious principle. 
