Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1890-04-04
=1cI,DI11DDcTOWN w VA FRIDAY APRIL 4, 1890.

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.
ter off than this, and has forty-four.
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 not
part of the skeleton. but belong TO
the appendages, like skin and hair.
The sturgeon is toothless and draws
in its food by suction, but the shark
has hundreds of teeth set in rows that
sometimes number ten.
Lobsters and crabs masticate their
food with their horny jaws, but they
have also sets of teeth in their stom-
achs, where they complete the work
of chewing. But there is one peculiar
kind of 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 70 its mouth.
The jelly fish absorbs its food by
wrapping itself around the object
which it seeks TO make its own. The
starfish is even more accommodating.
Fastening itself to the body it wishes
to feed on, il 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 so do
monkeys, some of them pressing their
prehensile tails into service. 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
well provided with the necessary ma
chinery for eating much and often.
They have saw-like jaws and gizzards
too the latter being filled out with
horny teeth.
The caterpillar feeds with too saw
edged jaws, working transversely,
and uses them to such good advan-
tage 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. Ant
eaters, sloaths and armadillos 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 molars acting like
chopping knives, or rather scissors.
Their mouths, in fact, are veritable
hash mill.
The butterfly pumps nectar into
itself through tube, and bees and
flies suck up their food with long
tongue or proboscis.
The spiders mouth is quite COM
picated affair. 1t has fangs for hold
ing its prey, masticatory organs for
bruising its solid food, and sucking
apparatus for taking up the fluids
Quite as complicated is the mouth of
the mosquito, which consists of the
lances, the saws, and the pumping
tubes.
The leech has three saws, with
which it does good service in the
phlebolomy line.
The woodpecker has three-barbed
tongue like a Fijians spear, with
which it draws out the worm which it
has excited by its tapping.
The clam feeds with a siphon and
the oyster with its beard.
Strange and, curious as some Of
these modes of feeding are, however,
they none Of them compare in sim
plicity and efTectivness with that
practiced by the tapeworm. This
creature has neither mouth nor
stomach, but just lays long and alb
serbs the already digested food
through the skin.