“The extremities of the first are armed with claws or nails, which enable them to grasp, to climb, or to burrow. The extremities of the second tribe are employed merely to support and move the body.”
The extremities of the horse are covered with a hoof, by which the body is supported, and with which he cannot grasp any thing, and therefore he belongs to the tribe ungulata, or hoofed.
But there is a great variety of hoofed animals. The elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the swine, the horse, the sheep, the deer, and many others, are ungulated or hoofed; they admit, however, of an easy division. Some of them masticate, or chew their food, and it is immediately received into the stomach and digested; but in others, the food, previous to digestion, undergoes a very singular process. It is returned to the mouth to be re-masticated, or chewed again. These are called ruminantia, or ruminants, from the food being returned, from one of the stomachs (for they have four) called the rumen or paunch, to be chewed again.
The ungulata that do not ruminate are somewhat improperly called pachydermata, from the thickness of their skins. The horse does not ruminate, and therefore belongs to the order pachydermata.
The pachydermata who have only one toe, belong to the family solipeda—single-footed. Therefore the horse ranks under the division vertebrata; the class mammalia—the tribe ungulata—the order pachydermata—and the family solipeda.—The Horse.
Zootomist, s. A dissector of the bodies of beasts.
Zootomy, s. Dissection of the bodies of beasts.
APPENDIX.
——◀▶——