Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-06-25
HOW THEY TAKE FOOD.
The Various Ways in which Living Cret
IT.

The Various Ways in Which Living Great
uros Eat.
That peculiar echinoid, the sea-urchin,
has five teeth in five jaws-one in each
1aw-all the five Immediately surround
ing the stomach. The Jaws have pc
cul1ar centralized motion, all turning
inward and downward so that they also
act as feeders.
Snails have teeth on their tongues,
hundreds OF them, says the San Fran
cisco Chronicle, but, as if these were not
enough, some have them also in their
stomach.
The cuttlefsh, which, among other
strange things, always walks with its
head downward, does not chew its food
ct all, but masticates with it's gizzard.
So do geese, fowls, ducks, and indeed all
modern birds. SEEKING their food in
their beaks they swallow it whole. if
grain or seed, and in large pieces If it be
fruit or bread. In that condition it roes
into the gizzard, a powerful muscle with
very tough, horny lining, which acts as
mill, being sufficiently powerful to
pulveriEe unoooked 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 escape cutting by these mate
rails. It's because of this fact that the
ostrich has acquired his reputation of
enjoying ferrugtnous diet,
Even when they had teeth birds only
used them to take their food, depend
ing upon the gizEard for mastication
then IS now.
Fishes and reptiles use their teeth for
the same purpose, that of taking their
food, but, like the birds, they gulp down
their food unchewed, and unbroken If
possible,
There are, however, exceptions, The
ray, or skate, for instance, has a mouth
set transversely across its heal, the jaws
working with rolling motion like two
hands set back to back. In the jaws are
three rows of fat teeth, set lizea mosaic
pavement. and between these rolling
jaws the fish brushes oysters and other
mollusks like so many nuts.
The carp's teeth are set back on the
pharynx, so that it may be literally said
to masticate its 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 COM
plete nsastication.
Some fishes are absolutely toothless,
like the sucker and lamprey; others
again have hundreds and hundreds of
teeth, sometimes SO many that they Gov
or all parts of the mouth.
The great Greenland whale has no
teeth, its baleen plates, or whalebone,
taking their place. Along tho center
Of the palate runs strong ridge, and on
each side Of this there is wide depPes-
sion, along which the plates are inserted.
While the Greenland whale has no
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 narwhal very
seldom develops more than one, the left
upper canine. 1t makes UP for the lack
of number by the extraordinary grow TIA
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 ele-
plants are its unduly developed upper
incisors, those Of the walrus are its up
per 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.