EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 
435 
rant, which had the power of discriminating, on its return, any 
card that might be touched while it was in another apartment. I 
suspected that the little creature was enabled to do this trick by 
means of its smell; and satisfied myself by the following ex- 
periment. Instead of touching the card with my hand or glove, I 
touched it with my pencil, and the result was that the little con- 
jurer was foiled, and could not distinguish the particular card I had 
moved.” — Lancet , 35-6, ii, 318. 
The same odours appear to make very different impressions on 
different animals. The carnivora, with a few exceptions, appear 
to be insensible to the odours of plants : the ruminants rarely ex- 
amine with much attention any animal substances. Yet even the 
ox and the sheep, and especially the horse, will test his compa- 
nions, and, when sufficiently familiarized, form, I have sometimes 
thought, no very inaccurate judgment of the human being by the 
sense of smell. I scarcely need to remind you how intimately con- 
nected is the sense of smell with the continuance of the species of 
almost every quadruped. 
EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 
By Professors TlEDEMANN and Gmelin, of the University of 
Heidelberg. 
DIGESTION IN THE RUMINANTS. 
[We are pleased that this portion of the important subjects dis- 
cussed by the Heidelberg Professors follows so closely on the 
discussion on Rumination, in the Veterinary Medical Associa- 
tion. We will give a literal translation. Our readers must 
form their own conclusion. — Y.] 
RUMINATING animals, whose natural food consists of materials 
the most difficult of digestion — fresh or dried herbs, leaves or haum 
— are, as is well known, those which, of all the mammalia, possess 
the most complicated digestive organs. They have four stomachs, 
the parietes of which, as in other animals, are composed of four 
layers, or coats, placed one above another, — an external or serous, 
a muscular, a cellular or vascular or nervous, and an internal or 
mucous. The vascular and mucous tunics present the most striking 
differences with regard to their disposition. 
The first stomach, and the largest of all, is the rumen or Paunch 
— Le Herbier — that which contains the grass or herbs of which the 
food consists. It resembles a large reservoir, divided into various. 
