RUMINATING ANIMALS. 



other animals, .we spend the least time in eating : 

 this is one of the great distinctions between us 

 and the brute creation ; and eating is a pleasure 

 of so low a kind, that none but such as are nearly 

 allied to the quadruped desire its prolongation. 



CHAPTER XV. 



, 



OF QUADRUPEDS OF THE COW KIND. 



OF all ruminant animals, those of the Cow kind 

 deserve the first rank, both for their size, their 

 beauty, and their services. The horse is more 

 properly an animal belonging to the rich ; the 

 sheep chiefly thrives in a flock, and requires at- 

 tendance ; but the cow is more especially the 

 poor man's pride, his riches, and his support. 

 There are many of our peasantry that have no 

 other possession but a cow ; and even of the ad- 

 vantages resulting from this most useful creature, 

 the poor are but the nominal possessors. Its 

 flesh they cannot pretend to taste, since then 

 their whole riches are at once destroyed ; its 

 calf they are obliged to fatten for sale, since veal 

 is a delicacy they could not make any preten- 

 sions to ; its very milk is wrought into butter and 

 cheese for the tables of their masters ; while they 

 have no share even in their own possession, but 

 the choice of their market. I cannot bear to 

 hear the rich crying out for liberty, while they 

 thus starve their fellow-creatures ; and feed them 



