ORDER VI. 
RUMINANTI A. 
Feet bifid; metacarpus composed of a single bone, bifid at its lower extremity. Stomach compound. 
In the preeceding diagnosis from Wagner is contained, in very brief phrase, the most essential 
peculiarities of this extremely natural order of the Mammalia. The species vary comparatively 
little from one type of structure ; the proportions of the body, as well as the size, differing, 
however, very much in different families. As a general rule, the neck is long and flexible, 
the body compressed, the tail sometimes very long, sometimes almost rudimentary. The legs 
are usually long and slender ; the head armed with horns, which are either solid or hollow. 
The best known characteristics of the ruminants are found in the structure and functions of 
the stomach. This is composed of four different compartments, each having a particular office. 
(The Camelidae have hut three.) The food is hastily chewed and passed into the largest 
stomach, or paunch, and thence into the second ; from this it is returned to the mouth and 
there completely masticated. It then passes back to the third stomach, and thence to the fourth, 
from which it goes into the intestines. The arrangements by which the food is directed first into 
one stomach and then into another, are very interesting and peculiar, but need not here be 
referred to. 
The horns constitute another chief peculiarity of the ruminants. These are protuberances 
from the frontal bones, sometimes persistent and enclosed by a horny sheath, as in the sheep, 
ox, &c., or else they are solid and fall periodically, as in the deer. 1 These two different condi¬ 
tions give rise to the divisions of hollow and of solid horned ruminants. 
The feet in the typical ruminants are bifid, the third and fourth fingers alone being developed 
the first finger is wanting entirely ; the second and fourth are either very rudimentary, or else 
visible externally as accessory hoofs, above the level of the rest. 
The ruminants may be arranged in three very natural groups ; the first, with the horns solid, 
and usually deciduous, as the deer; the second, with permanent horns consisting of an exterior 
hollow horn encasing a process of the skull, as the sheep, goats, antelopes, oxen, &c. ; the third, 
embracing the camels and llamas. These last have two incisors in the upper jaw, and the 
normal number of canines ; no horns, and feet with two toes, without hoofs. No living repre¬ 
sentatives of the last named family exist in North America, although the majority of the species 
inhabit the South American continent. A fossil member of the group has, however, been char¬ 
acterized by Dr. Leidy, 2 from Kansas Territory. 
'In the giraffe, ( Camelopardalis ) the horns are mere knobs on the forehead, covered with skin, and not deciduous. 
2 Camelops kansanus. Leidy, Pr. A. N. S. 
