CHAMOIS.
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LARGER IMAGE
CASSELL’S NATURAL HISTORY.
WATER DEERLET, OR CHEVROTAIN.
CHAPTER I.
ARTIODACTYLA—RUMINANTIA: BOVIDÆ—SHEEP, GOATS, AND GAZELLES.
Ruminantia—Chewing the Cud—Metaphorical Expression—The Complicated Stomach: Paunch, Honey-comb Bag, Manyplies, Reed—Order of Events in Rumination—Feet and Dentition of Ruminants—Brain—Classification—[HORNED RUMINANTS]—Divided into two Groups—Difference between them—[BOVIDÆ]—Horns—Aberrant Members—[SHEEP AND GOATS]—General Characteristics—Sheep of South-Western Asia—Merino Sheep—Breeds of Great Britain—Dishley, or Improved Leicesters—Mr. Bakewell’s Description—Southdowns, Cheviots, Welsh, and other British Breeds—Table of the Importation of Colonial and Foreign Wool into the United Kingdom—[MARCO POLO’S SHEEP]—[OORIAL]—[SHAPOO]—[MOUFLON]—[AMMON]—[BURHEL]—[AMERICAN ARGALI]—[WILD SHEEP OF BARBARY]—[THE GOAT]—Compared with the Sheep—Descent—Cashmere Goat—[IBEXES]—[PASENG]—Their remarkable Horns—Old Theories as to the Use of the Horns—[MARKHOOR]—[TAHR]—[GAZELLES]—General Characteristics—Sir Victor Brooke’s Classification—[THE GAZELLE]—Appearance—Habits—[ARABIAN GAZELLE]—[PERSIAN GAZELLE]—[SOEMMERRING’S GAZELLE]—[GRANT’S GAZELLE]—[SPRINGBOK]—[SAÏGA]—[CHIRU]—[THE PALLAH, OR IMPALLA]—[THE INDIAN ANTELOPE, OR BLACK BUCK.]
THE Swine, together with those animals which most nearly approach them, namely, the Peccaries and Hippopotami, form but a small division of the cloven-hoofed order of the Mammalian animals; by far the greater number of the species of the Artiodactyla being included in a group known familiarly as that of the Ruminantia, because, as part of the digestive process, they chew the cud.