2—2 1—1 2—2 3—3
i ——, c ——, p ——, m —— = 32.
2—2 1—1 2—2 3—3
The mouth is bounded by fleshy lips. On the floor of the mouth is the tongue, which bears the taste-buds or papillæ, the organs of taste. The œsophagus is always a simple straight tube, but the stomach varies greatly, being usually simple, but sometimes, as in the ruminants and whales, divided into several distinct chambers. The intestine in vegetarian mammals is very long, being in a cow twenty times the length of the body. In the carnivores it is comparatively short—in a tiger, for example, but two or three times the length of the body.
Fig. 151.—A group of Rocky Mountain sheep, or "big horns," Ovis canadensis, including males, females and young. (Photograph by E. Willis from specimens mounted by Prof. L. L. Dyche, University of Kansas.)
The blood of mammals is warm, having a temperature of from 35° C. to 40° C. (95° F. to 104° F.). It is red in color, owing to the reddish-yellow, circular, non-nucleated blood-corpuscles. The circulation is double, the heart being composed of two distinct auricles and two distinct ventricles. Air is taken in through the nostrils or mouth and carried through the windpipe (trachea) and a pair of bronchi to the lungs, where it gives up its oxygen to the blood, from which it takes up carbonic-acid gas in turn. At the upper end of the trachea is the larynx or voice-box, consisting of several cartilages attaching by one end to the vocal cords and by the other to muscles. By the alteration of the relative position of these cartilages the cords can be tightened or relaxed, brought together or moved apart, as required to modulate the tone and volume of the voice.
The kidneys of mammals are more compact and definite in form than those of other vertebrates. In all mammals except the Monotremes they discharge their product through the paired ureters into a bladder, whence the urine passes from the body by a single median urethra. Mammary glands, secreting the milk by which the young are nourished during the first period of their existence after birth, are present in both sexes in all mammals, though usually functional in the female only.
Fig. 152.—A group of moose, Alce americana, showing male, female, and young. (Photograph by E. Willis from specimens mounted by Prof. L. L. Dyche, University of Kansas.)