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. When, however, an animal is of large size, and
feeds on substances of so thorny and ligneous a character as to be
difficult of concoction, it may in consequence have several
stomachs, as for instance is the case with the camel. A similar
multiplicity of stomachs exists also in the horned animals; the reason
being that horn-bearing animals have no front teeth in the upper
jaw. The camel also, though it has no horns, is yet without upper
front teeth. The explanation of this is that it is more essential
for the camel to have a multiple stomach than to have these teeth. Its
stomach, then, is constructed like that of animals without upper front
teeth, and, its dental arrangements being such as to match its
stomach, the teeth in question are wanting. They would indeed be of no
service. Its food, moreover, being of a thorny character, and its
tongue necessarily made of a fleshy substance, nature uses the
earthy matter which is saved from the teeth to give hardness to the
palate. The camel ruminates like the horned animals, because its
multiple stomach resembles theirs. For all animals that have horns,
the sheep for instance, the ox, the goat, the deer, and the like, have
several stomachs. For since the mouth, owing to its lack of teeth,
only imperfectly performs its office as regards the food, this
multiplicity of stomachs is intended to make up for its
shortcomings; the several cavities receiving the food one from the
other in succession; the first taking the unreduced substances, the
second the same when somewhat reduced, the third when reduction is
complete, and the fourth when the whole has become a smooth pulp
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