THE RUMINANT HARE
Sir,-It is a pity that science must so often be distorted to fit the innocent folk-lore of scripture. The hare is not a ruminant. It has no first stomach or "rumen" (Latin for "throat"’). Al herbivorous mammals have the large blind gut, or caecum, which seems to take the overflow of partly digested food from the stomach when pastures are lush. Under certain circumstances, such as in a scientist’s torture-hutch, the hare, or any other herbivore, consumés both the soft and hard pellets. It would upset Mr. D. S, Milne’s theories if he could see the springbok of South Africa-a true ruminantdoing the same thing, Witnessing this in both the Pretoria and Johannesburg zoological parks, I sought information from a zoo Official. He told me that when the great springbok herds ‘swarmed across the veldt like locusts, the vanguard consumed everything, while the rest survived on what they could pick up. The fact is that the true vegetarian has not yet evolved; the herbivore’s gut is still not long enough to digest fully the food he consumes. Pseudo-ruminant? One might as well call the rabbit a pseudo-fish because of his marble-slab destiny at one-and-four
a pound!
VARIAN J.
WILSON
(Christchurch),
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540415.2.12.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 769, 15 April 1954, Page 5
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203THE RUMINANT HARE New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 769, 15 April 1954, Page 5
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