Before closing this brief sketch of the digestive apparatus of the ox, it may not be uninteresting to quote some of the quaint speculations of Nathaniel Grew on this subject, from his 'Comparative Anatomy of Stomachs and Guts.' He says: "The _voluntary_ motion of the stomach is that only which accompanies rumination. That it is truly voluntary, is clear, from the command that ruminating animals have of that action. For this purpose it is, that the muscules of their venters are so thick and strong; and have several duplicatures, as the bases of those muscules, whereupon the stress of their motion lies. By means whereof they are able with ease to rowl and tumble any part of the meat from one cell of the same venter to another; or from one venter to another; or from thence into the gullet, whensoever they are minded to do it; so that the ejectment of the meat, in rumination, is a voluntary eructation. "The pointed knots, like little papillae, in the stomachs of ruminating beasts, are also of great use, namely, for the tasting of the meat. The inner membrane of the first three venters is fibrous (like the gustatory papillae of the tongue) and not glandulous; the fourth only being glandulous, as in a man. Of the fibres of this membrane, and the nervous, are composed those pointed knots, which are, both in substance and shape, altogether like to those upon the tongue. Whence I doubt not, but that the said three ventricles, as they have a power of voluntary motion, so, likewise, that they are the seat of taste, and as truly the organs of that sense, as is the tongue itself." [Illustration: Skull of Domestic Ox, from a specimen in the Royal College of Surgeons.] The mouth of animals of the Ox Tribe contains, when full, thirty-two teeth. Six molars in each jaw, above, below, and on either side; and eight incisors in the lower jaw. In the upper jaw there are no incisors; but instead thereof a fibrous and elastic pad, or cushion, which covers the convex extremity of the anterior maxillary bone, and which is well worthy of observation. The final cause of this pad (which stands in the place of upper incisor teeth) and the part it plays in the procuring of food, is thus described by Youatt. "The grass is collected and rolled together by means of the long and moveable tongue; it is firmly held between the lower cutting teeth and the pad, the cartilaginous upper lip assisting in this; and then by a sudden nodding motion of the head, the little roll of herbage is either torn or cut off, or partly both torn and cut.