DIVISION IV 



CATTLE. 



CHAPTER I. 



WILD AND TAME CATTLE OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 



THE URUS AND THE AUROCHS OF THE 



ANCIENTS. 



It requires no great amount of discernment to 

 perceive how much man is indebted to the 

 Iierds of the field, for 6uppl3'iu£r him with 

 those necessaries of life by which his comfort 

 is increased, and his happiness enlarged. The 

 01, in many parts of the globe, takes the place 

 of the horse, in assisting hiui to cultivate the 

 6oil ; and the cow supplies him with the most 

 nutritious of all beverages. Milk, cream, 

 cheese, and butter, enter largely into his 

 dietary, and form a species of food and drink 

 at once nourishing and agreeable. _ ilven after 

 death these useful animals are made subser- 

 vient to his wants. Portions of their cooked 

 carcasses become converted into the "roast 

 beef of old England;" and their hides furnish 

 the material for shoes ; their horns are made 

 into combs, and other articles of ornamenta- 

 tion ; while their hoofs supply him with glue, 

 and various gelatinous substances ; their bones 

 are fashioned into knife- handles, and applied 

 to numerous other purposes; whilst their 

 refuse, in the shape of dust, is restored to the 

 earth whence they came, to help to multiply 

 its productive power, and increase its vegeta- 

 tion, by which other animals may be raised, 

 and their species perpetuated. Such is the 

 important part which these patient animals 

 perform in the grand scheme of creation ! 

 How much, then, does man owe to them for 

 the many comforts, and even luxuries, they 

 are the means of bringing within his reach ! 

 In natural history, these animals are desig- 

 nated as the genus Bos (oxen), and their clia- 

 racters are defined, as both sexes haviug horns ; 

 but they have neither suborbital sinus, inter- 

 digital foasoo, nor inguinal pores. The teats 



in the females are four. The animals of this 

 genus are, with some few exceptions, the 

 largest and most massive of the hollow-horned 

 Euminanta. Their limbs are low and strong ; 

 their bodies heavy, with wide haunches, and 

 thick, and often elevated shoulders ; their heads 

 are large ; and tho progressive increase of their 

 horns is marked by annuli at tho base. They 

 sheathe a hollow or cancellous bony core, 

 continued from the sides of a bold frontal 

 ridge. Tlie forehead, or chaffron, is expanded ; 

 the muzzle, except in the sub-genus OviLos, is 

 broad, naked, and moist; tho neck is thick, 

 deep, compressed laterally, carried horizontally, 

 and furnished with a pendent dewlap. The 

 spinous processes of the anterior dorsal ver- 

 tebrae, at the withers, are very long and stout. 

 All the Ox group are gregarious in their 

 habits ; and no quarter of the globe is destitute 

 of its indigenous species, existing in a state of 

 freedom, tenanting the deep glades of the 

 forest, or roaming over hills or plains. The 

 genus may be subdivided into the following 

 minor groups, or sub-genera: — Bos, Auoa, 

 Bubalus, Bison, and Ovibos; descriptions of 

 which we will give in their proper places, as 

 they rise before us, in this division. 



Tlie Ox (Bos Taurus) is now only known 

 as a domesticated animal, widely diti'used over 

 almost every region of the globe, and every- 

 where contributing, by its services and pro- 

 ducts, to the well-being of man. Although 

 referred to as a domestic animal in the earliest 

 ages, by the author of the Mosaic record, im- 

 penetrable darkness hangs over its primeval 

 history ; nor is its wild origin known, or 

 wliether that origin is in existence. Tempera- 

 ture, soil, food, a thousand circumstances, ope- 

 rating through the revolutions of years, have 



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