With the hippopotamus we begin the long list of artiodactyls, or cloven-footed animals, in which the weight of the body rests equally on the two central digits (third and fourth) which are alike in development, while the second and fifth digits, when present, do little or no work, except in the hippopotamus, whose outside toes are as long as the central ones, because needed by an animal treading on muddy soil, and accustomed to swimming. Although this huge marsh denizen is now confined to Africa, it ranged into southern Europe and eastward to India within quite recent times, but was destroyed by the human settlement of these countries; and civilization will in due time exterminate it from the Congo and Nile basins where it now is so numerous, and so incompatible with commerce and industry.
The swine are the first artiodactyls to show the typical cloven feet, and in them the two hind toes reach almost to the ground, so as to help the footing in the soft ground that they frequent. The foremost member of the family (Suidæ) is the wild boar of the Old World, known from the North Sea to the Bay of Bengal; and it is hard to realize that the fat hogs of our stockyards are modifications of this bristling forest boar with his muscular form, swift gait, and terrible tusks. Far more ugly in appearance, however, is the wart hog of Africa and the hairless "babiroussa" of Celebes, whose upcurved tusks far outmeasure those of the Indian boar. America has a family of native swine named peccaries—small, thin-legged, grizzled-black pigs, with very thick, bristly necks and large, angular heads. They have wicked little eyes, razor-sharp tusks in both jaws, and no visible tails, and the young are not striped as in the typical Suidæ. These pigs go in companies, wandering mainly at night in search of food, and taking almost anything edible. They are irascible, attack with fierce energy in concert, and are formidable foes to anything afoot, driving even the jaguar up a tree when the band turns on him. One kind of peccary is common in southwestern Texas, and its roving bands do much damage by night to crops and gardens; it is called a "javelin."
PREHISTORIC HIPPOPOTAMUS
Drawn by Christman. (American Museum of Natural History)
The swine occupy a somewhat intermediate place between the solid-hoofed and the split-hoofed sections of the Herbivora; and the stomach is simple except in the peccaries, where it takes a complicated form that approaches that of the ruminants. This simplicity, with the correlated fact that swine do not chew the cud, enabled the leaders of the ancient Hebrews to set pigs apart, as unclean, by a more general definition than a mere name could give, thus leaving no way of escape for those who might be inclined to dodge the prohibition by quibbling. All other Herbivora are ruminants, that is, chewers of the "cud"—those that gather and swallow their food in haste, and then at leisure recover it and thoroughly rechew it in small quantities (cuds).
Photos, Elwin R. Sanborn, N. Y. Zoological Society
AT THE LEFT, THE KUDU, OR STRIPED ANTELOPE OF
AFRICA; AT THE RIGHT, HEAD OF THE GREATER SABLE
ANTELOPE
Photo, American Museum of Natural History
HEAD OF AN ALASKAN MOOSE
This strange operation, like the carrying away of food by pocket mice, monkeys, etc., enabled these comparatively defenseless animals to gather nutriment in a short time and then retreat to a safe place to prepare it for digestion. Associated with this practice is a large, complicated stomach, normally consisting of four chambers, into the first and largest of which the hastily swallowed forage is first received. Then, when swallowed a second time, it passes on into the second or true stomach, where real digestion begins.
