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. The
explanation of this is to be found in the moist character of their
food. For all these birds feed on substances easy of reduction, and
their food being moist and not requiring much concoction, their
digestive cavities are of a corresponding character.
Fishes are provided with teeth, which in almost all of them are of
the sharp interfitting kind. For there is but one small section in
which it is otherwise. Of these the fish called Scarus (Parrot-fish)
is an example. And this is probably the reason why this fish
apparently ruminates, though no other fishes do so. For those horned
animals that have no front teeth in the upper jaw also ruminate.
In fishes the teeth are all sharp; so that these animals can
divide their food, though imperfectly. For it is impossible for a fish
to linger or spend time in the act of mastication, and therefore
they have no teeth that are flat or suitable for grinding; for such
teeth would be to no purpose. The oesophagus again in some fishes is
entirely wanting, and in the rest is but short. In order, however,
to facilitate the concoction of the food, some of them, as the
Cestreus (mullet), have a fleshy stomach resembling that of a bird;
while most of them have numerous processes close against the
stomach, to serve as a sort of antechamber in which the food may be
stored up and undergo putrefaction and concoction. There is contrast
between fishes and birds in the position of these processes
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