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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To the stranger the great variety of breeds and their adapta- 

 tion to a wide range of needs and conditions are not at first appar- 

 ent. He sees an ox and another ox as he sees a native and another 

 native, without noticing that they belong to distinct families. 

 Orientals have a passion for classifying things, and see scores of 

 differences in rice, cotton, wheat, cattle, and horses, which are 

 barely perceptible even to trained English eyes. But among 

 cattle, though there is a bewildering variety of local breeds, some 

 broad differences may be easily learned. The backward slope of 

 the horns of the large and small breeds of Mysore cattle — perhaps 

 the most popular type in use — the royal bearing of the splendid 

 white or fawn oxen of Guzerat, and the transport and artillery 

 cattle bred in the Government farms, at once strike the eye. 

 These are the aristocrats of the race, but they have appetites pro- 

 portioned to their size, and are too costly for the ordinary culti- 



FiG. 6.— Indian " Thorn-bits." 



vator. They trot in bullock coaches or draw the springless and 

 uncomfortable but delightfully picturesque native rath or cano- 

 pied ox-cart, the wagons of the Government commissariat and of 

 the various Government baggage services. 



India has been described by a European as the paradise of 

 horses, and from his point of view the phrase is not unfitting. 

 The natural affinity between horses and Englishmen becomes a 



