Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-05-29
HOW THEY EAT.
The Various Ways in which Living Crea.
lures Take Their Food.

surrounding the stomach. The Jaws
have peculiar centralized motion, all
turning inward and downward, so that
they also act as feeders.
Snails have teeth on their tongues,
hundreds of them, but, if these were
not enough, some have them also in
their stomach.
The cuttletish. which among other
strange things always walks with its
head downward. does not chew its food
at all, but masticates with its gizzard.
SO do geese, fowls, ducks, and indeed
all modern birds. Selling their food
in their beaks they swallow it whole,
II grain or seed, and in large pieces if
1t be fruit or bread. In that condition
1t goes into the gizzard. a powerful
muscle, with very tough, horny, lin
ing, which acts as mill, being suffi-
GENTLY powerful to pulverize uncooked
corn. To assist in the milling process
all grain-eating birds swallow little
pieces of gravel, glass. crockery,
metal. ETC., the horny interior of the
gizzard being sufficiently tough to es-
cape cutting by these materials. 1t is
because Of this fact that the ostrich has
acquired his reputation of enjoying a
ferruginous diet.
Even when they had teeth birds only
used them to take their food, depend
ing upon the gi3zard for mastication
then It's now.
Fishes and reptiles use their teeth
for the same purpose. that of taking
food, but like the birds, they gulp
down their food unchewed and I'M
broken if possible.
There are, however, exceptions. The
ray, or skate, for instance, has a
mouth set transversely across its head,
the jaws working with rolling mo-
ton like two hands set back to back.
In the jaws are three rows of flat teeth,
set like a mosaic pavement, and be-
tween these rolling jaws the fish
brushes oysters and other mollusks like
so many nuts.
The carps teeth are set back on the
pharynX. so that it may be literally
said to masticate it's food in its throat.
The carp, too, is about the only cud-
chewing fish, the coarsely 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 of teeth, some
times so many that they cover all parts
of the mouth.
The great Greenland whale has no
teeth, its baleen plates, or whalebone,
taking their place. Along the centre
of the palate runs strong ridge, and
on each side of this there is wide
Ia,,roScinn oil ;ah h., =,
inserted. These are long and flat,
hanging free, and are placed transverse
ly-that is, across the mouth, with
their side parallel and near each other.
The base and outer edge of the plates
are of solid whalebone, but the inner
edges are fringed, filling up the interior
Of the mouth and acting as strainer
for the food, which consists of the
small swimming mollusks and medua,
or jelly fishes. The whale rarely, il
ever, swallows anything larger than 3
herring. shoals of these small creatures
being entangled in the fbers of the
baleen, the water which does not es-
cape from the mouth being expelled
by the blow holes. Though the cavity
of this whales mouth is big enough to
contain ships long boat, the gullet is
not larger than mans fist. The
lower jaw has neither baleen nor teeth,
but has large, tieshy lips within which
the upper is received when the mouth
is closed.
While the Greenland whale has nc
teeth, the sperm whale has them in
great quantities on the lower jaw, and
uses them, too, when occasion requires.
On the other hand the narwhale 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 line
with the body, until it becomes a
veritable tusk. sometimes reaching the
length of ten feet. Apropos of tusks,
the elephants are its unduly developed
upper incisors; those of the walrus are
its upper CANNES, and so are those of
the wild hog.
Man is the only animal that has
teeth-incisors, CANNES, and molars-
of an equal height. Man, the ape,
and nearly all ruminants, have thirty
two teeth. The hog, however, is bet
lcl Ou tItu tlliS, duu Hdo
So have the opossum and mole. The
river dolphin of South America lays
far beyond this however, having no
less than 222 teeth. Teeth are no part
of the skeleton, but belong to the APP
pendage, like skin and hair.
The sturgeon is toothless and draws
in it's 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 chew
Ing. But there is one peculiar kind of
crab, called the king or horseshoe
crab, which chews its food with its legs.
This is an actual fact the little animal
grinding its morsels between its thighs
before it passes them over to it's mouth.
The Jelly fish absorbs its food by
wrapping itself around the object
which it seeks to make its own. The
startish 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 use
full organ.
Dogs seize their food with their jaws,
and so do monkeys, some of them
pressing their prehensile tails into SER
vice. The squirrel uses its paws to
carry its food to its mouth, the ele-
plant its trunk. the giraffe, anteater,
and toad their tongues.
Spiders chew their food with horny
jaws. which are sharp enough to give
quite a nip.
Grasshoppers and locusts are very
we'll protected with the necessary ma