essarily be
herbivorous, or vegetable feeders, because they are possessed of no
means of seizing prey. It is also evident, having no other use for their
fore-legs than to support their bodies, that they have no occasion for
a shoulder so vigorously organised as that of carnivorous animals; owing
to which they have no clavicles, and their shoulder-blades are
proportionally narrow. Having also no occasion to turn their forearms,
their radius is joined by ossification to the ulna, or is at least
articulated by gynglymus with the humerus. Their food being entirely
herbaceous, requires teeth with flat surfaces, on purpose to bruise the
seeds and plants on which they feed. For this purpose, also, these
surfaces require to be unequal, and are, consequently, composed of
alternate perpendicular layers of enamel and softer bone. Teeth of this
structure necessarily require horizontal motions to enable them to
triturate, or grind down the herbaceous food; and accordingly the
condyles of the jaw could not be formed into such confined joints as in
the carnivorous animals, but must have a flattened form, correspondent
to sockets in the temporal bones. The depressions, also, of the temporal
bones, having smaller muscles to contain, are narrower and not so deep;
and so on, throughout the whole organisation.

The digestive system of the ruminantia is more complicated in structure
than that of any other class of animals; and, owing to this complexity,
and the consequent difficulty of investigating it, its nature and
functions have been less perfectly understood.

The stomach of the Manilla Buffalo, which will serve as an example of
all the other species, is divided into four cavities or ventricles,
which are usually (but improperly) considered as four distinct
stomachs.

The following figure represents the form, relative size, and position of
these four cavities when detached from the animal, and fully inflated.

[Illustration: _a._ First cavity, called the paunch.

_b._ Second ditto, the honeycomb bag.

_c._ Third ditto, the many-plies.

_d._ Fourth ditto, the reed, or rennet.

_e._ A portion of the oesophagus, showing its connection with the
stomach.

_f._ The pylorus, or opening into the intestines.]

The interior of those cavities present some remarkable differences in
point of structure, which, in the present work, can only be alluded to
in a very general manner. For a particular account of the internal
anatomy of these