234 



ANIMALS OF 



and the sheep are known, in a course of years, 

 to impoverish the ground. The land where 

 they have fed becomes weedy, and the vege- 

 tables coarse and unpalatable ; on the con- 

 trary, the pasture where the cow has been 

 bred, acquires a finer, softer surface, and be- 

 comes every year more beautiful and even. 

 The reason is, that the horse being furnished 

 with fore-teeth in the upper jaw, nips the 

 grass closely, and therefore only chooses that 

 which is the most delicate and tender; the 

 sheep also, though with respect to its teeth 

 formed like the cow, only bites the most suc- 

 culent parts of the herbage : these animals, 

 therefore, leave all the high weeds standing; 

 and while they cut the finer grass too closely, 

 suffer the ranker herbage to vegetate and over- 

 run the pasture. But it is otherwise with the 

 cow : as its teeth cannot come so close to the 

 ground as those of the horse, nor so readily 

 as those of the sheep, which are less, it is 

 obliged to feed upon the tallest vegetables 

 that offer; thus it eats them all down, and in 

 time, levels the surface of the pasture. 



The age of the cow is known by the teeth 

 and horns. This animal is furnished with 

 eight cutting teeth in the lower jaw; at the 

 age often months the two middlemost of these 

 fall out, and are replaced by others that are 

 not so white, but broader; at the age of six- 

 teen months the two next milk-white teeth 

 fall out likewise, and others come up in their 

 room ; thus, at the end of every six months, 

 the creature loses and gains, till at the age of 

 three years all the cutting-teeth are renewed, 

 and then they are long, pretty white, and equal; 

 but in proportion as the animal advances in 

 years, they become irregular and black, their 

 inequalities become smoother, and the animal 

 less capable of chewing its food. Thus the 

 cow often declines from this single cause; 

 for as it is obliged to eat a great deal to sup- 

 port life, and as the smoothness of the teeth 

 makes the difficulty of chewing great, a suffi- 

 cient quantity of food cannot be supplied to 

 the stomach. Thus the poor animal sinks in 

 the midst of plenty, and every year grows lean- 

 er and leaner till it dies. 



The horns are another and. a surer method 

 of determining this animal's age. At three 

 years old, it sheds its horns, and new ones 

 arise in their place, which continue as long as 



it lives ; at four years of age, the cow has 

 small pointed, neat smooth horns, thickest 

 near the head; at five, the horns become 

 larger, and are marked round with the former 

 year's growth. Thus, while the animal con- 

 tinues to live, the horns continue to lengthen ; 

 and every year a new ring is added at the 

 root; so that allowing three years before their 

 appearance, and then reckoning the number 

 of rings, we have, in both together, the ani- 

 mal's age exactly. 



As we have indisputably the best breed of 

 horned cattle of any in Europe, so it was not 

 without the same assiduity that we came to 

 excel in these, a c . in our horses. The breed 

 of cows has been entirely improved by a fo- 

 reign mixture, properly adapted to supply the 

 imperfections of our own. Such as are pure- 

 ly British are far inferior in size to those on 

 many parts of the continent ; but those which 

 we have thus improved by far excel all others. 

 Our Lincolnshire kind derive their size from 

 the Holstein breed : and the large hornless 

 cattle that are bred in some parts of England, 

 came originally from Poland. We were once 

 famous for a wild breed of these animals, but 

 these have long since been worn out ; and 

 perhaps no kingdom in Europe can furnish so 

 few wild animals of all kinds as our own. 

 Cultivation and agriculture are sure to banish 

 these wherever they are found ; and every 

 addition a country receives from art drives 

 away those animals that are only fitted for a 

 state of nature. 



Of all quadrupeds, the cow seems most lia- 

 ble to alteration from its pasture. In the dif- 

 ferent parts of our own country we easily per- 

 ceive the great varieties produced among 

 these animals, by the richness or poverty of 

 the soil. In some they grow to a great bulk ; 

 and I have seen an ox sixteen hands high, 

 which is taller than the general run of our 

 horses. In others, they appear as diminutive ; 

 being not so large as an ass. The breed of 

 the Isle of Man, and most parts of Scotland, 

 is much less in general than in England or 

 Ireland : they are differently shaped also, 

 the dewlap being much smaller, and, as the ex- 

 pression is, the beast has more of the ewe 

 neck. This, till some years ago, was consi- 

 dered in cattle as .1 deformity ; and the cow 

 was chosen, according to Virgil's direction, 



