LESSON L.

EVEN TOES.

“Then bend your gaze across the waste—what see ye? The giraffeMajestic stalks toward the lagoon, the turbid lymph to quaff;With outstretched neck, and tongue adust, he kneels him down to coolHis hot thirst with a welcome draught from foul and brackish pool.”

“Then bend your gaze across the waste—what see ye? The giraffe

Majestic stalks toward the lagoon, the turbid lymph to quaff;

With outstretched neck, and tongue adust, he kneels him down to cool

His hot thirst with a welcome draught from foul and brackish pool.”

—F. Freiligrath.

The order of ungulate has for its second sub-order the even-toed animals. This group is distinguished by the power and habit, which all its species have, of bringing back into the mouth, food already swallowed, in order to re-chew it thoroughly. This habit is called ruminating or chewing the cud. We have all observed it in sheep, kine, and camels.

The most notable characteristic of these animals is the formation of the stomach, which is divided into several compartments of different construction. The second of these stomach compartments is small and lined with cells of a honey-combed appearance. The slightly chewed food, on reaching this receptacle, is gradually moulded into pellets or small masses, which, instead of passing into the next lower division of the digestive apparatus, rise into thethroat, are re-conveyed to the animal’s mouth, and are slowly chewed into a fine pulp. Any one who has watched a cow or sheep lying at ease, calmly and steadily chewing the cud, has seen a picture of quiet enjoyment.

The lowest division of the stomach of a cud-chewer is called the rennet-bag, from a fluid called rennet, which it contains, which digests all the food. Rennet has the property of curdling milk, or rather of making it partly solid without rendering it sour. It is used in making cheese. This rennet, mingled with the well-masticated food of the cud-chewers, completes the process of digestion. All liquids swallowed by these animals find their way at once to the rennet-bag.

All cud-chewers feed upon vegetable substances, and chiefly upon grass, of which they eat the stalks and fibrous portions as well as the blades. In a former lesson we spoke of the need of sheep for “roughness,” as stock men call it—a need which is shared by all ruminants. This roughness is the coarse and innutritious portions mixed with the richer parts of their food, to enable them to chew the cud, and to prevent indigestion, which would be caused by too rich and compact diet.

The teeth of cud-chewers are especially formed for grazing; there are no incisors or cutting teeth on the upper jaw, except in the camel family. The teeth are of two kinds, incisors (on the lower jaw) and grinders, or molars. These grinders are wide teeth, and as the jaws move, the molars act upon each other from side to side, the lower jaw grinding against the upper one. Watch a cow as she eats, and you will observe this motion.

Now let us look at these even-toed feet. You will say that these animals have hoofs divided in the centre, while the hoof of a horse is not divided at all. The pig, which does not ruminate, has a hoof centrally divided, like that of a sheep; and the hare, which chews the cud, has several separate toes, and belongs to the rodents. Amid all this diversity there is this constant characteristic, that the cud-chewers of the ungulates have the toes of each foot collected under what is called a cloven hoof, as if a solid hoof had been cleft into two.

There are four families of even-toed ruminants—the hollow-horned, including kine, sheep, goats, and antelopes, the deer tribe, the camel tribe, and the camelopards.

To the hollow-horned family belong our most useful domestic animals, and those earliest associated with man. The cow family affords us beef, our principal meat food, also butter, cheese, and milk; while the hides furnish our chief supply of leather. The bones are used for making buttons, combs, knife-handles; the hair is used in plaster; glue and gelatine and calves’ foot jelly are made from the hoofs. Oxen are largely used for draught purposes. What, then, should we do without the bovine race?

The sheep was no doubt the first domesticated animal; its gentle nature, and the ease with which it can be reared, made it an early associate with the homes of men; its wool furnishes probably our chief clothing supply; its flesh is a favorite food; many nations drink its milk, from which they make also cheese and butter. Thus we have in the sheep an animal indispensable to our civilization.

The goat is a third hollow-horn, the flesh and milk of which are much used in many countries, while the goat’s long and silky hair is in demand for woven fabrics.

Finally among the hollow-horns we find the famous animals of the antelope family, the beautiful, timid gazelle, the fleet chamois, the fierce, untamable gnu, the graceful ibex. If we had time to describe all these, we should find before us some of the most charming creatures in the world. They live in high mountain districts, and the Swiss is never more happy than when he pursues the chamois over the steep crests and among the crags of his native land.

The largest and most untamable of the hollow-horns is that cousin of our patient, useful ox, the bison, or buffalo,[92]an animal rapidly becoming extinct through cruel and wanton slaughter. While few of us have seen the bison himself, his shaggy pelt is well known in the buffalo robes of our sleighs and carriages, and in the heavy overcoats made for northern travel. Next to the elephant and the rhinoceros, the bison is the largest of land-mammals.

If we lived in Arabia instead of America, we should set beside the sheep, as the special ally of men, the camel. We have all seen this creature in menageries and zoological gardens,—a tall, awkward beast, with long legs, a shambling gait, one or two humps on its oddly shapen back, a small head, the upper lip split in the centre, a long neck, smallears, a dusty, shaggy coat, and a demeanor of patient endurance. Buffon says that “the camel is the chief treasure of the East.”

Gentle and hardy, demanding but little food, and that of the coarsest description,—a few dates, a few handfuls of grain,—capable of going for days without water, a strong beast of burden, this is one of the most important members of an Arab family. The milk of the camel affords the Arab cheese, and also a nourishing drink; of the animal’s long hair is woven cloth for clothing and for tent covering; its flesh is used for food; and across the long, hot, arid stretches of his desert land, the Arab rides in safety, seated on his tent and household goods piled upon the back of this “ship of the desert.”

From the earliest times the camel has been the only means of conveying travellers and Eastern commodities across the desert. It travels thirty or forty miles a day, under the hot sun, carrying a burden of five hundred or six hundred pounds.

Camels have broad, callous soles over the bottoms of their feet. These enable them to tread firmly without sinking in the desert sand. There are also callous knobs on their knees and breasts, which protect them as they kneel to receive burdens, or sleep in a kneeling position. The training of the young camel begins when it is but a few days old, and it is taught to get along with the smallest possible allowance of food, drink, and sleep.

The stomach of the camel is provided with numerous little sacs, called water-cells; these drain off a considerablequantity of water when the camel is drinking, and retain it for several days, restoring it gradually to the stomach. The camel seems to prefer coarse, unsucculent, dry food, and burning sunshine; it never seeks the shade. It is perhaps apathetic, rather than gentle; it seems little impressed by kindness, and, like the elephant, has a long memory for injuries.

Following the camel in our menageries usually comes a very strange-looking beast, the tallest of all animals. With its long neck, small head, and its habit of browsing off the tree-tops, it reminds us of what we have read of that fossil beast, the iguanodon. This is the giraffe, often called the camelopard, which name is given it because it has a somewhat camel-like form, and the beautiful spotted skin of a leopard.

If we watch a giraffe in a menagerie, we shall remark the beauty of its silky, spotted coat, the gentleness of its large, eager eyes, its two short horns covered with skin, its ears turned backward, its long, dark tongue, with which it constantly licks its lips and nostrils. Timid and mild, the giraffe shows vexation only by pawing the ground rapidly with its fore hoofs; it will bend its stately head to accept an apple or a carrot from a little child, and seems to forget the days when it wandered through the African forests, and browsed on fruit and leaves from the tops of the trees.

The giraffe is one of the swiftest of animals, and it is almost impossible to take an adult alive. They are generally captured while very young, and brought up on camels’ milk, until old enough to eat grain and green fodder.

The Western hemisphere gives us no animal corresponding to the giraffe. In South America the llama in some measure represents and takes the place of the camel; but the tall and beautiful giraffe stands alone of his kind.

We now turn to the fourth family of the ruminants, distinguished by the fact that they shed and renew their horns. The horns of the cow, ox, sheep, antelope, and goat are permanent. If by any accident they are lost, they are not renewed; but the deer family shed their horns, which indeed, are not properly called horns, but antlers. Antlers are a horny growth, large and branching, divided into what are called tines. Up to a certain age these antlers grow, fall off, and are renewed every year, and there is no mammal peculiarity more wonderful than the rapid growth of these large frontal ornaments. In many of the deer species the male alone wears the antlers. In the reindeer family both males and females have these huge horny branches.

The deer family is distinguished for grace of movement and beauty of form. They have smooth, close, hairy coats, but on the breast of the male deer the hair grows long and is called a beard. The eyes are large, clear, and bright, full of gentle eagerness, and furnished on the inner corner with a curious hollow, or gland, called the tear-pit. They have small, pointed ears, and short tails; their legs are slim, and their hoofs are small, the whole animal being built for lightness in running. Even the antlers are not nearly so heavy as they look, for they are porous and full of air-cells.

The deer family is distributed over the entire world.Deer vary in size from the large elk or moose, the royal stag, and the magnificent wapiti, to the small roe deer, not so large as a sheep, and the pigmy deer, which is the smallest of all ruminants, and indeed, is not larger than a hare.

Deer are vegetable-feeders, and in the coldest climates are capable of living on lichens, and the scantiest fare. In the far north reindeer or caribous furnish the chief wealth of the people, and serve instead of cows, horses, and sheep, their flesh and milk being the chief food-supply, and their skins furnishing clothing and bedding. They serve also as draught animals, and pull sledges over the snow with incredible swiftness.

Deer generally live in herds; the mother is a most vigilant and tender parent, devoting herself to her twin children with tireless care. Deer are distinguished for the perfection of their senses of sight, smell, and hearing, and as soon as one of a herd discovers anything that indicates danger, the alarm is given, and away they go. The deer mothers, while feeding, are constantly alert, and hurry their little ones off at the first hint of danger. The general disposition of the deer is amiable, but the old males sometimes fight furiously together, and if brought to bay by hunters, defend themselves valiantly with hoofs and horns.

Passing now from the ungulates, we reach a very well-known order of mammals, called the carnivora, or flesh-eaters. This order is divided into two sub-orders, the pinnipeds, or “fin-footed,” and the fissipeds, or “slit-footed.” In our study of the seal we have had the best example of thefin-footed, or aquatic carnivora. Bring up your dog or your cat for a sample of the slit-footed flesh-eaters. Ponto, set your foot down firmly, and let us look at it. All the toes are of equal length; the foot looks as if a roundish foot had been deeply slit into toes, which are hairy up to the nails. The feet of web-footed animals would look like this if they were not webbed.[93]

These slit-footed, or fissiped creatures, are divided into several species, and there is considerable difference in their way of treading; some, as the cats, walk on their toes. Come here, kitty, let us see your feet. Kitty can draw her claws close into the “velvet,” or fur, of her paw so that you would not know she had sharp nails. As she does this she curls her foot up into a cushion, and walks on the ends of her toes. Look at her foot when she stretches it; how well you can see the slit-foot arrangement and the clawed toes. Kitty is a mild and domestic representative of the great, feline race, at the head of which stands the lion. Ponto, on the other hand, is a civilized and educated specimen of the canine race, which numbers among its members the wolf.

While kitty draws in her claws and walks on her toes, the bears are what is called plantigrade carnivora, for they walk on the flat soles of their feet. These carnivora are all flesh-eaters, but when educated and refined, like Ponto and Kitty, they will eat any kind of food.

Among the carnivora we enumerate lions, tigers, bears, cougars, hyenas, panthers, wolves, jackals, leopards, cats,dogs, badgers, and many more. You see they embrace all the fiercest and most dangerous wild beasts, as well as our domestic friends, the cat and the dog. If you will open Kitty’s mouth, or Ponto’s, you will see what style of teeth these carnivora have; they are made for tearing flesh, and are accompanied by sharp claws for holding fast the living prey. All the carnivora are singularly strong, agile, and tenacious of life. The carnivora are so varied and interesting, that we leave them to be studied elsewhere, and indeed so we must serve the final order of mammals—the primates.[94]

These primates are divided into two sub-orders, the quadrumana, or four-handed animals, and the human race. Many scientists, instead of the order primates, with these two sub-orders, give us the order quadrumana, or monkeys, and the order bimana, or man, and that is the better division.

The quadrumana, or ape families, contain a large number of curious and interesting animals, all natives of tropical regions. They are hairy creatures, with three kinds of teeth, and are adapted for eating nearly all kinds of food. They are well known to us in menageries, and are frequently seen on our streets, fancifully dressed, and in company with a man and an organ, surrounded also by a group of admiring children.

“How many children are there in your family, Pierre?” we one day asked a bright little Italian boy.

“Four, and the monkey, signora.”

“But the monkey, Pierre, does not count with the children.”

“O signora! for care and trouble he counts more than the children! He must have the warmest corner and the best food. At night, for warmth, he sleeps in my father’s arms. He gets cold ten times as often as we do; and if he gets a cold he must have the doctor, for he is likely to die. If he dies, away go all our saved dollars for more monkey! Gracious! O signora! do you think our father would let our monkey run round in the streets and look out for his own dinner as Marie and I do? The thing is impossible!”

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:[92]The animal called a buffalo in America is not a buffalo, but a bison. The buffalo of India and Italy is theBubalus, the buffalo of the Western plains is the bison. The large, wild bison of Germany is called the Aurochs. All these animals belong to the family Bovidæ.[93]If we examine the toes of the cat and dog, we shall see that the skin extends web-like partly up the toe bones.[94]It has been impossible in so small a book to discuss with any minuteness the subjects noticed in the closing chapters. It is hoped that the hints given will incite pupils to study and observe the domestic animals of which we see so much and know so little.

[92]The animal called a buffalo in America is not a buffalo, but a bison. The buffalo of India and Italy is theBubalus, the buffalo of the Western plains is the bison. The large, wild bison of Germany is called the Aurochs. All these animals belong to the family Bovidæ.

[93]If we examine the toes of the cat and dog, we shall see that the skin extends web-like partly up the toe bones.

[94]It has been impossible in so small a book to discuss with any minuteness the subjects noticed in the closing chapters. It is hoped that the hints given will incite pupils to study and observe the domestic animals of which we see so much and know so little.

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