THE COW. 203 



speed and alacrity as she would manifest in leaping on a 

 chair in the presence of that ferocious animal the mouse. 

 We believe that this unreasoning terror has its origin in 

 the pernicious nursery legend of the cow with the crumpled 

 horn. It is true that that animal is related to have suffered 

 the maiden all forlorn to milk her, but she afterwards tossed 

 the dog; and it is the pictorial representations of her while 

 performing this feat that have impressed the juvenile mind. 

 The mere fact that there are few precedents for a woman 

 being tossed by a cow goes for nothing, nor that the animal's 

 disposition is peaceable in the extreme ; it can, therefore, be 

 hardly questioned that the timidity excited in the female 

 mind by the cow must be founded upon some lost legend 

 of antiquity. It may be that Eve had trouble in her first 

 efforts to procure lacteal fluid from the cow, or that the 

 specimen chosen to perpetuate the race in the Ark was 

 rendered savage and dangerous from its long imprisonment 

 there ; but no legend that would give favour to either theory 

 has come down to us. 



In her wild state the cow is compelled to take considerable 

 exercise in order to obtain a sufficient amount of sustenance ; 

 the domesticated animal, having no need to do so, has 

 developed habits of laziness. She has become constitutionally 

 averse to exertion ; but Providence, by sending the fly, has 

 done much to counteract the effects of this tendency. It 

 has been calculated by mechanical engineers that the amount 

 of energy required to switch away flics with a cow's tail is 

 equivalent to that which would raise a weight of seven 

 pounds one foot. Intelligent observers estimate that upon 

 a hot day when the flies are troublesome, a cow will switch 

 her tail thirty times in the course of a minute, thus 



