THE ALDER NLVS. 



139 



ugliness is passed over on these accounts ; and it is thought fash- 

 ionable that the new from the breakfast or drawing-room of the 

 house should present an Alderney cow or two grazing at a httle 

 distance. 





THE ALDERNEY COW. 



They are light red, yellow, dun or fawn-colored ; short, wild- 

 horned, deer-necked, thin, and small boned ; irregularly, but often 

 very awkwardly shaped. 



Mr. Parkinson, who seems to have a determined prejudice against 

 them, says that " their size is small, and they are of as bad a form 

 as can possibly be described ; the bellies of many of them are four- 

 fifths of their weight ; the neck is very thin and hollow ; the shoul- 

 der stands up, and is the highest part ; they are hollow and narrow 

 behind the shoulders ; the chine is nearly without flesh ; the bucks 

 are narrow and sharp at the ends ; the rump is short, and they are 

 narrow and light in the brisket." This is about as bad a form as can 

 possibly be described, and the picture is very little exagg^-ated, 

 when the animal is analyzed point by point ; yet all these defects 

 are so put together, as to make a not unpleasing whole. 



The Alderney, considering its voracious appetite — for it devours 

 almost as much as a short-horn — yields very little milk, That milk. 



