Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-04-10

Nc1coly oCIoen ALB uoaOS tue jaws WOtKl0G
with a rolling motion like two hands set
back to back. In the jaws are three rows Of
fat teeth, set like q mosaic pavement, and
between these rolling jaws the fish brushes
oysters and other mollusks like 30 many nuts.
The carps teeth are set back on the phar-
ynx, so that 1t may be literally said to masti-
cate its food in its throat. The carp, too, is
swallowed food being forced up to these
throat teeth for complete mastication.
Some fishes are absolutely toothless, like
the sucker and lamprey; others again have
hundreds and hundreds of teeth, sometimes
so many that they cover all parts of the
mouth.
The great Greenland whale has no teeth,
Its paleen plates, or whalebone, taking their
place. Along the center of the palate runs
strong ridge, and on each side Of this there
Is wide depression along which the plates
are inserted. These are long and fiat, hang
ing free, and are placed transversely-that is
across the mouth, with their side parallel and
near each other. The base and outer edge
OF the plates are of eolid whalebone, but the
inner edges are fringed, filing up the interi-
or of the mouth and acting as strainer for
the food, which consists of the small swim.
ming mollusks and medusae, or jelly fishes.
This whale rarely, if ever, swallows any
thing larger than herring, shoals of these
small creatures being entangled In the 6bres
cape from the mouth being expelled by fs>
blow holes. Though the cavity of this
whales mouth is big enough to contain q
ships long boat, the gullet is not larger than
mans fist. The lower jaw has neither ba-
leen nor teeth, but has large, feshy lips,
within which the upper is received when the
mouth is closed. "
the sperm whale has them in great quanti-
ties on the lower jaw, and uses them, too,
when occasion requires. On the other hand
the narwhal very seldom develops more than
one, the left upper canine. 1t makes up for
the lack of number by the extraordinary
growth attained by this one tooth. 1t grows
out and right forward, on a line with the
body, until it becomes a verritabie tusk,
sometimes reaching the length of ten feet.
Apropos of tusks, the elephants are its I'M
duly developed upper CANNES, and SO are
those of the wild hog.
Man is the only animal that has teeth
incisors, CANNES and molars-ef an equal
height. Man, the ape, and nearly all rumi-
nants, have thirty-tw teeth. The hog.
forty -four. So have the opossum and mole.
The river dolphin of South America lays far
beyond this, however, having no less than
two hundred and twenty-five teeth. Teeth
are not part of the skeleton, but belong to
the appendages, like ekin and hair.
Tho sturgeon ia toothless and draws in Its
food by suction, but the shark has hundreds
of teeth set in rows that sometimes number
ten.
HOLSTERS and crabs masticate their food
with their horny jaws, but they have also
sets of teeth in their stomachs, where they
complete the work of chewing. But there is
one peculiar kind of crab, called the king or
horseshoe crab, which chews it's food with
its legs. This is an actual fact, the little an
II ~3v,I, o1, hot1r
before it passes them over to its mouth.
The jelly fish absorbs its food by wrap
ping itself around the object which it seeks
to make its own. The star6sh is even more
accommodating. Fastening itself to the
body it wishes to feed on, it turns its stomach
inside out and enwraps its prey with this
useful organ.
Dogs seize their food with their jaws, cats
with their feet, and 60 do monkeys, some of
them pressing their pIehensile tails into ser-
vice. The squirrel uses its paws to carry its
food to its mouth, the elephant its trunk, the
giraffe, anteater and toad their tongues.
Spiders chew their food with horny jaws,
which are sharp enough to give quite nip.
Grasshoppers and locusts are very we'll
provided with the necessary machinery for
eating much and often. They have saw like
jaws and gizzards too, the latter being fitted
out with horny teeth.
The caterpillar feeds with two Eaw edged
jaws, working transversely, ard uses them
to such good advantage that he eats three or
four times his own weight every day.
Toads, tortoises, turtles and most lizards
have no teeth. Frogs have teeth in their
upper Jaw only. Anteaters, sloths and ar
madillos have no teeth.
The lion and the tiger, and, indeed, most
of the carnivora, do not grind their food,
using their jaws only up and down, the mo-
lars acting like choppiRg knives, or rather
scissors. Their mouths, in fact, are a veri-
table hash mill.
The butterfly pumps nectar into itself
through tube, and bees and flies suck up
their food with long tongue or a proboscis.
The spiders mouth is quite complicated
affair. 1t has fangs for holding its prey.
masticatorY organs for bruising Its solid
food, and a sucking apparatus for taking up
the fluids. Quite as complicated is the
mouth of the mosquito, which consists of
the lanoes, the saws and the pumping tubes.
The leeoh has three saws, with which 1t
does good service in the phlebotomy line.
The woodpecker has three barbed tongue
like Fijisn's speor, with which it draws out
the worn which it has excited by its tapping.
The clam feeds with siphon and the oys-
ter with It's beard.
Strange and curious as some OF these
modes of feeding are, however, they none of
them compare in simplicity and effectiveness
with that prsctised by the tapeworm. This
creature has neither mouth nor stomach, but
Just lays along and abeorbs the already di-
gested food through its skin.