CHAP. v. THE GUENON SYSTEM. 109 



iii any country ; and, indeed, some of the best English and Scottish 

 breeds have almost reached that point of perfection." Such an object 

 would be readily attained if it were more the practice to use bulls from 

 the best fattening stock with the best milch cows. 



" Some attention has been given to a discovery which was made by 

 M. Guenon respecting the ' escutcheon,' as it is termed. ... It can 

 scarcely have escaped the reader's notice that the hair on the buttocks 

 of cattle grows in two different directions, one portion pointing up, and 

 another part downwards, thus producing a sort of fringe at the line of 

 juncture. This hair which has an upward tendency has been termed 

 the ' escutcheon.' A very extended observation has shown that, 

 ' other conditions being equal, the modification of form presented by the 

 escutcheon will lead to an estimation not only of the quantity of milk 

 which the animal will produce, but also of the time during which the 

 cow will keep up the supply of milk. Without going much into detail 

 on this point, it may briefly be stated that the larger the extent of the 

 escutcheon the greater is the promise of milk, and also of its 

 continuance, even after the cow is again in calf. A cow may have a 

 small escutcheon and yet be a good milker ; but observation leads to 

 the conclusion that if she possessed a more fully developed escutcheon 

 she would have been a better milker. It may be considered a point of 

 merit not as deciding whether or not the cow is a good milker, but 

 rather as an additional indication, which may be taken into considera- 

 tion, in conjunction with other characteristic points. It is also 

 desirable, in estimating the extent of escutcheon, to make full allow- 

 ance for the folds in the skin ; otherwise a large escutcheon may be 

 taken for a small one. Besides the escutcheon, there are tufts of hair 

 (epis) which have a certain degree of value when seen upon the udder 

 of a cow.' " * 



M. Guenon in his system divides cows, according to the quantity of 

 milk which they give, into four classes. (1) First-rate cows (les tres 

 bonnes) ; (2) Good cows (les bonnes) ; (3) Middling cows (les me'diocres) ; 

 and (4) Bad cows (les mauvaises). He, however, before proceeding to 

 describe and illustrate the signs of the four classes, warns his readers 

 that this classification is used only to give a summary of the marks he 

 has been discussing. For there is no mark which can serve for 

 methodically classifying cows as milkers ; if the escutcheon had any 

 determinate or exact value (une valeur certaine), it would still be 

 necessary to take into account the extent of the surface, or the form 

 which the basis constituting the escutcheon cover will assume. This 

 cannot be done easily, nor if done would it be valuable, unless the 

 shape and weight of the cow were also taken into account. The forms 

 or shapes of the escutcheon also are so various, that the classification 

 of cows according to the quantity of milk which they give is adopted by 

 M. Magne. 



First Class. First-rate Cows. In this class are placed cows in 

 which both the mammary and the perina3al divisions of the escutcheon 



1 "On Breeding and Rearing Cattle," by Professor Tanner, in "Transactions of Highland 

 Society. '' 



