THE FARMER AT HOME. 



223 



uccessful. The first attempts to improve the short horns and the 

 Jerkshires, received serious checks from their system of in-and-in 

 reeding, and both Berry and Collings found it necessary to give more 

 igor arid constitution to their animals, by an infusion of different, 



j .nd in some respects inferior blood. 



INDIAN CATTLE. There can be little doubt the Zebu, or 

 ndian Ox. is merely a variety of the common ox. although it is diffi- 



< ult to ascertain the causes by which the distinctive characters of the 

 wo races have been in the process of time gradually produced. The 



ZEBU, OR INDIAN OX. 



only circumstances, in which the two animals essentially differ, 

 consist in a fatty hump on the shoulders of the Zebu, and in a some- 

 what more slender and delicate make of the legs. Numerous breeds 

 of this humped variety, progressing in size from that of a large mastiff 

 dog, to that of a full grown buffalo, are spread, more or less exten- 

 sively, over the whole of southern Asia, the islands of the Indian 

 Archipelago, and the eastern coast of Africa, from Abyssinia to the 

 Cape of Good Hope. In all these countries, the Zebu supplies the 

 place of our ox, both for labor, and as an article of food. In some 

 parts of India, it also executes the duties of the horse, being either 

 saddled and ridden, or harnessed to a carriage, and performing in this 



