In the act of rumination, the following is the probable order of
events:--The paunch contracts, and in so doing forces some of the
food into the honey-comb bag, where it is formed into a bolus by the
movement of its walls, and then forced into the gullet, from which,
by a reverse action, it reaches the mouth, where it is chewed and
mixed with the saliva until it becomes quite pulpy, whereupon it
is again swallowed. But now, because it is soft and semi-fluid, it
does not divaricate the walls of the groove communicating with the
manyplies, and so, continuing on along its tubular interior, it finds
its way direct into the third stomach, most of it filtering between
the numerous laminæ on its way to the fourth stomach, where it becomes
acted on by the gastric juice. After the remasticated food has reached
the manyplies, the groove in the reticulum is pushed open by a fresh
bolus; and so the process is repeated until the food consumed has all
passed on towards the abomasum, or true digestive stomach.
[Illustration: BRAIN OF A SHEEP.]
There are other features also which are characteristic of the
ruminating animals. Their symmetrical four-toed feet (in which the
thumb on the fore and the great toe on the hind are entirely absent)
have the toes so proportioned that the axis of the limb runs down
between the two middle toes at the same time that both the inside and
outside toes are much reduced in size, and lost entirely in the Camel
tribe, the Giraffe, and the Cabrit.
Another peculiarity which exists in all ruminating animals is the
absence of cutting-teeth in the middle of the upper jaw; and it is only
in the Camels and their intimate allies, the Llamas, that there are any
upper cutting-teeth at all, they being replaced in all the others by a
callous pad, on which the lower cutting-teeth impinge in mastication.
The canine teeth, which correspond to the tusks of the Lion and Dog,
also deserve attention. Those of the lower jaw are always present, and
are modified so as to appear like lateral cutting-teeth. In the upper
jaw they are most often absent, but are enormous, projecting far down
outside the lip, in the Musk, the Chinese Water Deer, and the Muntjacs.
In some other Deer they are present, but small, and generally they are
wanting.
The grinders are six on each side of each jaw, and are so formed that
their surfaces wear down unevenly by the lateral movement to which
they are subject during mastication. As in the Elephant, this depends
upon each tooth being made up of alternate layers of enamel, dentine,
and cementum, which, being of different degrees of hardness, are
differently affected by the grinding action.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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