Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/655

 CAMEL 649 to exist in a wild state, unless there is reason to believe that it is the progeny of animals, once domesticated, which have been acciden- tally or purposely liberated. It is now distrib- Camelus Bactrianus. nted over Arabia, Persia, southern Tartary, some parts of China, India, and northern and northwestern Africa. Some years ago the camel was introduced into the southern United States by the government, for the conveyance of military supplies and provisions to the gar- risons in and beyond the great desert and the extensive plains now traversed by the Pacific railroad; an attempt was also made to accli- matize it in Texas; but any satisfactory results which might have been expected from such experiments were frustrated by the civil war. Zoologically the camel is divided into two species: the Bactrian camel {C. Bactrianus), Camelus Arabicus. with two humps, and the Arabian or one- humped camel (C. Arabicus), sometimes but improperly called the dromedary. The true dromedary is merely a variety of the Arabian camel, to which it bears the same relation that the race horse does to the common horse. The dental formula is: incisors, ^^5 molars, = j, the anterior ones being conical, separated from the rest, and sometimes regarded as ca- nines. The upper lip is hairy, naked in front, and elongated ; neck and legs long ; toes two, callous beneath, the hoofs covering only the upper surfaces, the soles not being divided. The upper incisors are conical, compressed, somewhat curved, resembling canines, and are used for tearing up the hard and thorny plants of the desert on which the animal usually feeds. It is a large and ungainly creature, with a hump or humps on the back and callos- ities on the knees ; the hind legs seem dispro- portionately long, and the croup weak ; and it is probably the most awkward-looking of the mammals. Yet its apparent deformities make it one of the most useful of animals, and one without which the desert in semi-barbarous communities would be impassable. Its clumsy- looking and wide-spreading feet prevent it from sinking into the sand, and give its gait an Cells of the Camel's Stomach. Foot of CameL elasticity and silence peculiar to itself; its long pendulous upper lip is its organ of prehension, and its nostrils can be closed at will against the wind-driven sand. The hump upon its back is a storehouse of food, which is slowly reabsorbed during its long inarches, and se- cures it against death from the unavoidable privations of the desert. The seven rough callosities on the flexures of the limbs and chest are the points on which it rests when it kneels to receive its burden. The first stomach or paunch has a division, which may be closed by muscular action, whose walls are provided with a system of large cells, capable of con- siderable distention, which the animal can fill with water, to the amount of several quarts, and thus carry with itself a supply for its own wants for about a week, a supply which it oc- casionally yields with its life to save that of its master. The camel supplies the Arab with milk, and occasionally with its flesh, which is said to resemble beef, for food ; the hair serves to make clothing, the skin for leather, and the dung for fuel. The chief value of the camel,