222 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



that Necklace was down and breathing very hard, 

 " he didn't half like the look of her " — Necklace, the 

 sweetest heifer that had been born within the border 

 of the Queen's dominions that last year ; by whose 

 side the proudest and fairest had clustered admiring, 

 as she stood so gentle on the tented battle-field ; 

 and whose name was a household word with the pro- 

 fession. 



Black quarter ! beyond a doubt — direst plague of 

 the bovine race : against which avail, for certain, no 

 nostrums or veterinary practice, nor even the pre- 

 cautionary hellebore seton, though there were three 

 Anticyras to pick from. The only chance of steering 

 by which lies in a certain miraculous evenness of 

 feeding on an infinitesimally progressive graduated 

 scale. One change too sudden, one feed too much, 

 one fillip to the vein, and the torrent has burst out — 

 resistless over the system spreads the fatal flood. 

 Nought then avails the breeder. Stricken down at 

 a period when, as O'Connell's, her "minutes were 

 counted by the guinea," bleeding, medicine, are all 

 now to no purpose, as you may see with your own 

 eyes when her silky skin is stripped. His loss you 

 cannot estimate. The unfortunate owner knows it 

 too well, and, retiring to the saddened quietude of 

 his parlour, awaits there the closing intelligence of 

 life's fitful fever being over with another victim on 

 the holocaust of royal winners. 



Since writing the above, I have come across 

 Darwin's interesting w r ork on Species, by the light 

 of which, though I have made no alterations in the 

 manuscript, I am glad to see some points of what I 



