Cud Chewers

or Ruminants, an order of quadrupeds. All ruminants have a singular faculty of chewing the cud. They gather their food, chiefly grasses, herbs, or twigs, hastily. Ruminants have four stomachs. In swallowing they are able to admit food into either stomach at will. The first stomach is called the paunch. It receives vegetable matter, bruised at a first chewing. From the paunch food passes into the second or honeycomb bag, a small globular stomach, which seizes the food, moistens it, and presses it into little pellets or cuds. After gathering food for a time, the animal lies down or stands at rest, and raises these cuds into its mouth, and chews them in great apparent contentment. Food thus re-chewed descends into the third stomach, from which it proceeds to the fourth stomach, where true digestion takes place. In the young ruminants the fourth stomach is the largest of the four, so long as they continue to live on milk. The paunch is developed by pasturage. By chewing the cud an ox extracts about ten or twelve per cent more food from dry hay than a horse does. Cud chewers are divided into four families.