64 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [a . 2 - FKB ruary, 1906 



and massive strength not soon to be forgotten. Its divided stomach 

 and rough, muscular tongue unimpeded by upper teeth in front, enabled 

 it to sweep in its food with great rapidity and then rush back from 

 the open places to chew it in hiding and at rest, thus saving exposure, 

 energy, and amount of food required to live. 



But this met only its animal assailants. Those more insistent dan- 

 gers of the cold, the storm, the treacherous swamp and miry salt-lick 

 and stream were upon it. It met the cold with a heavy coat of hair, 

 the storm with a leathery skin, and the mire with a cloven hoof — a 

 most ingenious device - the two toes spreading apart when entering 

 the mud and closing again when lifted, avoided the suction so danger- 

 ous to the piston-like hoof of the horse. 



By the time man appeared upon the earth our ox had grown 

 great in numbers as well as in individuals. Man found him roam- 

 ing the forests and plains from Britain to Greece in great wild 

 droves, and immediately gave chase. The flint hatchets and 

 pierced skulls of the peat-bogs tell the story. These prehistoric 

 hunters were after meat. To them this Aurochs or Urus, as it was 

 called, was a manufacturer, a transformer of materials intrinsically 

 worthless — grass, weeds, twigs, and leaves — into most excellent 

 food and clothing for man. And this has been our attitude ever 

 since. This brought man to the ox, first as an enemy, then, to pre- 

 vent extermination, as a friend. This it is that makes the ox 

 our most important domestic animal, and the one probably last 

 to be given up, as the competition for the world's supply of plant 

 food increases. 



How the ox has changed under man's hand, how it has broken up 

 into breeds so distinct as to appear of different origins, how its 

 uses have been increased and differentiated in the various parts of 

 the world, are matters of record. In answer to the first we will note 

 only the securing of quicker development, the reduction and even 

 removal of horns, as in the Polled Uurhams and others, and the 

 extension and increase of the milk flow — no pounds per day be- 

 ing the record. 



Its present uses upon the earth vary from the utter indiffer- 

 ence of the Chinese to the almost complete bondage of the many 

 Swiss and Dutch families who depend on their cow for nearly every- 

 thing. Between these extremes there are all intermediate grades. 

 It is still a game animal in parts of Asia and Africa ; a pack 

 animal among the Filipinos ; a traction animal with the Hunga- 



