the Stomach of the Lama. 323 
between these two circumstances. There is nothing in the anato- 
my of the skeleton or dentition of the horse, which can lead an 
anatomist to decide, a priori, on the probable form of the stomach 
of that animal ; and I would ask, where are the data by which we 
could determine the form of the ‘stomach in the quadrumana, the 
larger pachydermata, including the pig, and in numerous others, 
unnecessary to be particularized here P 
If we now advert to the assigned. causes of structure, we shall 
find them equally untenable, equally unphilosophieal. The quad- 
ruple stomach of the ox and sheep is said to compensate for the 
deficiency of the incisive teeth ; but the camel has teeth of this 
kind, and its stomach is quintuple. The causes of nearly all struc- 
tures are concealed as yet by an impenetrable veil from human 
sight, leaving only a few great and general laws applicable to na- 
ture, but so loosely as greatly to diminish their. value. 
The animal machine abounds with structures, the reason for 
whose presence we cannot guess at, neither can we calculate what 
might be the result of their absence or destruction ; and we must 
be divested of the prejudices of ages, and of false dissections, of 
popular and necessarily false theories, to enter on the inquiry of 
the physiological character of the stomach of animals, than which, 
in many respects, there are none more interesting now inhabiting 
the globe. 
The camel, known to all antiquity,—the ship of the desert, as it 
has been styled by poets and by poetical writers,—the edie of 
communication betwixt countries separated by deserts which man 
nor animal could traverse in safety without their aid,—patient under 
suffering and fatigue, and temperate in regions where universal 
aridity, eternal drought, and an almost insupportable heat, demand 
of every thing living an excess in the use of liquid nourishment. 
These are the qualities known through all ages as characteristic of 
this animal. On the other hand, the lama, performing in minia- 
ture, as it were, to the ancient Peruvians those services rendered 
in a much more efficient manner by the congenerous animal of the 
old world, but still a kind of camel, if I may so express my rself,— 
a camel ie the new world,—a miniature of the camel of the desert, 
as the puma is of the lion ,——possessing similar qualities, patient 
under fatigue, temperate beyond what we are told, even in exag- 
geration, ee the ancient camel of the Arabian deserts © Mhicis fe 
knowledge, the previous knowledge drawn from history and cbser- 
vation, with which the anatomist preceeds to search for the struc- 
ture of the animal, the reasons for its temperance. His first essay 
is to discover the sac or bag in which the animal was supposed to 
deposit the water drank in large quantities, at long intervening pe- 
riods, as if really laid up in store for future use. The fluid passes 
into the stomach, and to this organ, therefore, the anatomist first 
directs his researches, delighted no doubt that there should exist in 
it a structure see mingly explanatory of this theory, seemingly con- 
forming with the habits of the animal, unlike to what exists in 
