An introduction to the study of mammals living and extinctLydekker, Richard
Science
An introduction to the study of mammals living and extinct
Lydekker, Richard
Mammals
It generally has a pointed apex, and is deeply hollowed to receive the
right kidney, to the upper and inner side of which it is applied.
Considerations derived from the comparatively small and simple condition
of the liver of the Ungulata, compared with its large size and complex
form in the Carnivora, have led to the perhaps too hasty generalisation
that the first type is related to a herbivorous and the latter to a
carnivorous diet. The exceptions to such a proposition are very numerous.
The fact of the great difference between the liver of the Cetacea and
that of the Seals cannot be accounted for by difference of habits of
life, though it perhaps may be by difference of origin.[14]
V. CIRCULATORY, ABSORBENT, RESPIRATORY, AND URINARY SYSTEMS.
_Blood._—The blood of mammals is always red, and during the life of the
animal hot, having a nearly uniform temperature, varying within a few
degrees on each side of 100° Fahr. The corpuscles are, as usual in the
vertebrates, of two kinds: (1) colourless, spheroidal, nucleated, and
exhibiting amœboid movements; while (2) the more numerous, on which
depends the characteristic hue of the fluid in which they are suspended,
are coloured, non-nucleated, flattened, slightly biconcave discs, with
circular outline in all known species except the Camels and Llamas,
where they have the elliptical form characteristic of the red corpuscles
of nearly all the other vertebrates, though adhering to the mammalian
type in the absence of nucleus and relatively small size. As a rule they
are smaller as well as more numerous than in other classes, but vary
considerably in size in different species, and not always in relation
to the magnitude of the animal; a Mouse, for instance, having as large
corpuscles as a Horse. Within the limits of any natural group there is,
however, very often some such relation, the largest corpuscles being
found among the large species and the smallest corpuscles among the small
species of the group, but even to this generalisation there are many
exceptions. The transverse diameter of the red corpuscles in Man averages
¹⁄₃₂₀₀ of an inch, which is exceptionally large, and only exceeded by
the Elephant (¹⁄₂₇₄₅), and by some Cetacea and Edentata. They are also
generally large in Apes, Rodents, and the Monotremata, and small in the
Artiodactyles, least of all in the Chevrotains (_Tragulus_), being in _T.
javanicus_ and _meminna_ not more than ¹⁄₁₂₃₂₅.[15]
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