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RUMINATING ANIMALS. 
ture adapted to their living. In the Musk-ox, an 
animal entirely an inhabitant of an arctic country, and 
consequently often having occasion to traverse plains 
covered with ice, the “ under parts of the hoofs and 
frog, shew a singular softish, transversely ribbed sur- 
face, of a brown red colour, seemingly intended to se- 
cure the foot on slippery snow or ice, tlie outer hoof is 
round, the other crooked and pointed.” * In some 
African antelopes, the hoofs are low and flat, and in 
the broad-hoofed antelope they extend almost an 
inch laterally, a structure supposed to be of use to 
those species which inhabit a trackless expanse of 
sandy desert. The broad foot of the Rein-deer, 
and some others which inhabit a country covered for 
many months with snow, afford facilities when it is 
newly fallen and yet soft, and give them great power 
when exercising another mode of progression, by 
swimming across the large lakes and rivers, which 
otherwise would prove an impassable march-fence. 
“ The rein-deer swim so swiftly, their broad feet, 
struck with great force, impell them so fast in the 
strongest currents, and across the broadest rivers, 
that a boat well manned can scarcely keep pace with 
them.” 
The hair of the ruminating animals assumes also 
different forms, according to circumstances, and is 
produced in greater or less profusion. In all those 
of the colder and temperate regions, it is abundantly 
• Hamilton Smith, Note to Griffith’s Cuvier. 
