for a more perfect digestion. In connexion with
this power we must mention the complex character of their stomachs, which are four in number, each having a distinct structure and function; and the first three of which are so disposed that the food can enter at the will of the
animal into either of them, the gullet terminating at the point of communication.
The first stomach or paunch (rumen) is, in the full grown animal, the largest of all, but not so in the new-born young. It is externally divided into two bag-like appendages at its extremity, and it is slightly separated into four parts internally. The interior surface is beset with innumerable flattened warts (papille). The mass of herbage, rudely bruised by the teeth, is received into this stomach, whence it is transmitted to the second, called the honey-comb bag (reticulum). This is small and globular, and may be considered as an appendage to the paunch, but is distinguished from it by the laminæ which stand up from its inner surface, dividing the whole into elegantly-arranged hexagonal cells, like those of a honey-comb. The food is here arrested, moistened, and compressed into small pellets, which are successively returned to the mouth to be rechewed, an operation usually performed during the repose of the animal, and evidently attended with much enjoyment.
Thus completely masticated, it again passes through the œsophagus, and is received by the third stomach, called the manyplies (psalterium), the inner coat of which is also set with lamine, but running down longitudinally parallel with each other, so close and numerous as to resemble
