Ruminants have four divisions to the stomach. Their food is first swallowed into the roomy paunch in which, as in the crop of a bird, the bulky food is temporarily stored. It is not digested at all in the paunch, but after being moistened, portions of it pass successively into the honeycomb, which forms it into balls to be belched up and ground by the large molars as the animal lies with eyes half closed under the shade of a tree. It is then swallowed a second time and is acted upon in the third division (or manyplies) and the fourth division (or reed). Next it passes into the intestine. Why is the paunch the largest compartment? In the figure do you recognize the paunch by its size? The honeycomb by its lining? Why is it round? The last two of the four divisions may be known by their direct connection with the intestine.
Fig. 387.—Food traced through stomachs of cow. (Follow arrows.)
Fig. 388.—Section of cow’s stomachs. Identify each. (See text.)
Fig. 389.—Okapi. This will probably prove to be the last large mammal to be discovered by civilized man. It was found in the forests of the Kongo in 1900.
Questions: It shows affinities (find them) with giraffe, deer, and zebra. It is a ruminant ungulate (explain meaning—see text).
The true gastric juice is secreted only in the fourth stomach. Since the cud or unchewed food is belched up in balls from the round “honeycomb,” and since a ball of hair is sometimes found in the stomach of ruminants, some ignorant people make the absurd mistake of calling the ball of hair the cud. This ball accumulates in the paunch because of the friendly custom cows have of combing each other’s hair with their rough tongues, the hair sometimes being swallowed. Explain the saying that if a cow stops chewing the cud she will die.
Fig. 390.—African Camel (Camelus dromedarius).