Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1890 — HOW THEY EAT. [ARTICLE]

HOW THEY EAT.

The V»rloM Ways in which Living Cmtore* Toko Their Food. That peculiar echinold, the sea urchin have five teeth in live jaws—one in each jaw—all the five immediately surrounding the stomach. The jaws have a peculiar centralized motion, all turning inward and downward, so that they also act as feeders. Snails have teeth on their tongues, hundreds ot them, but, if these were not enough, some have them also in their stomach.

The. cuttlefish, 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. Seizing their fojd 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 goes into the gizzard, a powerful muscle, with a very tough, horny, lining, which acts as a mill, being sufficiently powerful to pulverize uncooked corn. To assist in the milling process all grain-eating birds swallow little pieces of gravel, gl&ss, crockery, metal, etc., the horny interior of the gizzard being sufficiently tough to escape cutting by these materials. It 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, depending upon the gizzard for mastication then aa 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 unbroken if possible. There are, however, exceptions. The ray, or skate, for instance, has a mouth set transversely across its head, the jaws working with a rolling motion like two hands set back to back. In the jaws are three rows of flat teeth, setlike a mosaic pavement, and between these , rolling jaws the fish crushes 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 cudchewing fish, the coarsely swallowed food being forced up to these throat teeth for complete mastication. Some Ashes are absolutely toothless, like the sucker and lamprey; others again have hundreds of teeth, sometimes 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 a strong ridge, and on each side of this there is a wide depression along which the plates are inserted. These are lon» and flat, hanging free,and are placet! transversely—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 a strainer for the food, which consists of the small swimming mollusks and meduse, or jelly fishes. The whale rarely, if ever, swallows anything larger than a herring, shoals of these small creatures being entangled in the fibers of the baleen, the water which does not escape from the mouth being expelled by the blow holes. Though the cavity of this whale’s mouth is big enough to contain a ship’s long boat, the gullet is not larger than a man’s fist. The lower jaw has neither baleen nor teeth, but has large, fleshy lips within which the upper is received when the mouth is closed.

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 narwhale very seldom develops more than one, the left upper canine. It makes up for the lack of number by the extarordinary growth attained by this one tooth. It grows out and right forward, on a line with the body, until it becomes ■ veritable tusk, sometimes reaching the length of ten feet. Apropos of tusks, the elephant’s are its unduly developed upper incisors; those of the walrus are its upper canines, and so are those of the wild hog. Man is the only animal that has teeth—incisors, canines, and molars—of an equal height. Man, tbe ape, and nearly all ruminants, have thirtytwo teeth.’ The hog, however, is better 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 no part of the skeleton, but belong to the appendage, like skin and hair. The sturgeon is toothless and draws in its food by suction, but tbe 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 stomachs, where they complete the work of chewing. 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 its mouth. The jelly fish absorbs its food by wrapping itself arouud the object which it seeks to make its ow». The starfish 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, and so do monkeys, seme es them pressing their urehensile tails into service. The souirrel uses its paws to carry its food to its mouth, the ele-< phant 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 well protected 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 sawedged jaws, working transversely, and I uses them to such good advantage that i he eats three or four times his own ' weight every day.

Toads, tortoises, turtles, ana mon lizards have no teeth. Frogs have teeth in their upper jaw only. Anteaters, sloths, 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 a veritable bash mill. ’7—^— — The butterfly pumps nectar into itself through a tube, and bees and flies sucks up their food with a long tongue or a proboscis. The spider’s month is quite a complicated* affair. It 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 lances, the saws, and pumping tabes. The leech has three saws, with which it does good service in the phlebotomy line. The woodpecker has a three-barbed tongue like a Fijian’s 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 simplicity and effectiveness with that practiced by the tapeworm. This creature has neither mouth nor stomach, but just lays along and absorbs the already digested food through its skin.