Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

298 CATTLE.
is of a liquid form, and it is swallowed in small quantities, and with
little force at each act of deglutition. The instinctive closure of the
pillars— an act of organic life—
(because the milk if suffered to fall
into the rumen would be lost, or would undergo dangerous changes
there)—has far more to do with the direction of the fluid than any
mechanical effect resulting from the form of the aliment, or the force
with which it descended the gullet. Tt is curious to observe the
comparatively diminutive size of the rumen, and the development of
the abomasum or digesting stomach in the foetal calf.
THE SUBJECT OF RUMINATION, AND THE CHANGES OF THE FOOD RESUMED.
The food, being returned from the reticulum to the mouth, is there
subjected to a second mastication, generally very leisurely performed,
and which is continued until enough is ground not only to satisfy
the cravings of hunger, but to fill the comparatively small true stomach
and intestine of the animal ; who then, if he is undisturbed,
usually falls asleep. The act of rumination is accompanied, or
closely followed, by that of digestion, and requires a considerable
concentration of vital power; and hence the appearance of tran-
quillity and sleepy pleasure which the countenance of the beast pre-
sents. The rumen is rarely or never emptied ; and probably the
food that is returned for rumination is that which has been macerating
in the stomach during many hours. The process of rumina-
tion is very easily interrupted.
The portion of food having been sufficiently comminuted, is at
length swallowed a second time ; and then, either being of a softer
consistence, or not being so violently driven down the gullet, or, by
some instinctive influence, it passes over the floor of the canal, without
separating the pillars, and enters the manyplus, or third stomach.
This is represented at b, p. 287, and m, p. 291.
The manyplus presents an admirable provision for that perfect
comminution of the food which is requisite in an animal destined to
supply us with nutriment both when living and when dead. That
which is quite ground down is permitted to pass on ; but the leaves,
that have been described as hanging from the roof, and floating close
, over the cesophagean canal, and armed with numerous hook-formed
papillae, seize upon every particle of fibre that remains, and draw it
up between them, and file it down by means of the hard prominences
on their surfaces, and suffer it not to escape until it is reduced to a
pulpy mass.
These three stomachs, then, are evidently designed for the prepa-
ration and comminution of the food before it enters- the fourth stomach,
in which the process of digestion may be said to commence,
and where the food, already softened, is converted into a fluid called
chyme. Tie villous coat of the abomasum abounds with small folli-