The mammals which chew the cud are known to naturalists as the Ruminantia. They com prise most of tho animals most useful to man,— camels, deer, cattle, and sheep. They are the most truly and exclusively vegetable feeders, and grass forms their chief food. They have four stomachs. The first of these, the paunch, receives the food as it is plucked, and passes it on to the second, where it receives a good maceration. From this it is returned to the mouth in pellets or boluses, to undergo a complete trituration by the molar teeth; is then passed into the third stomach, where it undergoes an additional pre paration ; and is lastly received into the true digestive stomach. This provision of nature enables them to crop a large quantity of food quickly, to be masticated at leisure, and thereby obviate the many interruptions they are liable to from beasts of prey and other alarms, as they are all excessively timid and wary. All of them are eaten as food by man, and all but the deer have been domesticated from the most ancient times. The camel, the sheep, and goats, by the Arabs and other races, have been offered in sacrifice. The races who follow Hinduism look with abhor rence on the slaughter of the cow. Their reverence for it almost amounts to worship, and they typify the earth as the ever-yielding cow. The camel, the ox, and the buffalo have all been trained for carriage, and they are utilized in agricultural operations. In Egypt, the camel and the ox, or the camel and the buffalo, may be seen yoked together at the plough. The cow is rarely thus employed. The hare and the rabbit, species of the rodentia or gnawing tribe, are eaten by most races, but as they do not chew the cud, they are abstained from by religionists who follow the Mosaic law. For the same reason, the hare, the rabbit, and the swine are avoided by Jews and Muhammadans, for though they divide the hoof they do not chew the cud. The swine , and the rabbit have been domesticated. The Chinese and most Christian races eat the swine largely ; and in India, to hunt the wild boar with the spear is a favourite sport.
Many of the races professing Hinduism, and all the JaMs and Buddhists, ought by the tenets of their religion to abstain from all animal food. No Hindu would eat the cow. The Buddhists of Ceylon, Further India, Tibet, China, and Japan ought to be similarly abstinent ; but though many of them will not kill to eat, few have scruples to use what another has killed, or creatures that have died of disease. The Burmese on the banks of the great rivers partake largely of fish, and the pig is reared for food by all Chinese. One or other of tho non-Aryan races of India cat most of the quadrupeds and fishes, and many reptiles, amongst which may be mentioned the field, bush, and bamboo rats, the jerboa rat, a species of Gerbillus, several of the frogs and snakes.
Some of the frugivorous bats are occasionally used medicinally, as also the secretions of the musk deer and civet, Viverra zibetha. Otters are trained in China to aid in fishing with the cast or bell not. The net is east, and the otter, attached by a cord to tho boat, is lowered to frighton fish out of holes in rocky or uneven bottoms into tho net, which, as soon as lifted, is closed at the bottom by the leaden sinkers, and the fish are thus caught.
Jerboa rats, in thousands, issue from their boles in the dusk of the evening, and stand erect on their long hind legs. The credulous and super stitious greatly value as a charm the projecting process on the frontal bone of the jackal, and imagine it to be a horn ; the claws and teeth of the tiger are also prized. The striped and spotted skins of the tiger, the lion, the leopard, and the panther are prepared as rugs for the drawing rooms of the wealthy ; the horns of the rhino ceros are valued by the Chinese carver ; the ivory of the tusks and teeth of the elephant is used for many purposes iu the arts; but the hides, skins, furs, hair, wool, horns, and bones of the horse, cattle, deer, sheep, and goats far out weigh in value to man the arts products of all other mammals.
Of the other mammals of the East Indies, many are even hurtful. The elephant, the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the hymna, and the wolf, the jackal, the fox, the wild dog, and the .bear cause many deaths of man and domestic animals. In British India, in the seven years 1875 to 1881, the yearly numbers of human beings so killed (144,260) ranged from 19,273 to 21,990; and the deaths of cattle (362,027) from 43,669 to 58,386. The Government of India pay annually ten or twelve thousand pounds as rewards for killing wild beasts. About 1600 elephants are destroyed annually, 7 000 tigers and leopards, 2000 bears and hymnas, 5000 wolves, and 200,000 snakes.
The following were the numbers of human beings killed by Tigers, leopards, and wolves are the most destructive.
One species of bare is found in the south of the Peninsula, another in Northern and Central India; the hispid hare in N.E. Bengal, and laptop on the Himalayas. One elephant is common to all India ; two species of rhinoceros occur in N.E. Bengal, one of them extending to the extreme south of the Malay Peninsula ; ono wild pig occurs throughout all India, varying slightly in appearance ; and a peculiar dwarf species is found sparingly in the Terai adjoining the S.E. Him alayas. The wild ass of Western Asia and Persia is found in tho north-western deserts. Two species of the true deer of the red deer type occur only within the Himalayas, beyond the outer range in Kashmir and Sikkim, and these two extend over a great part of Asia. The maral, largo stag, is found in all the higher regions of the Ala-tau and Mus-tau. Ile affords nobles port for the hunters, and his horns are highly valued by the Chinese. But it demands a fearless hunter to follow him into his haunts among the precipices, glaciers, and snowy peaks of this region. In winter and spring he is found in the valleys, but as the weather becomes warmer he ascends, to escape the flies and other insects. They are seldom found in herds, though groups of 10 or 12 are sometimes seen standing on the brink of a precipice 1500 to 2000 feet in height, quite inac cessible to man. Two Cossacks hunting the maral, followed the game far up into the Ala-tau, and found a magnificent animal, whose horns were worth 120 roubles.