222 THE OX. 



a fitting habitation in the pestilential swamps with which this 

 beautiful country is defaced. Vast herds of them are seen 

 grazing in the wild and swampy plains of Calabria, in the 

 Pontine Marshes near Rome, and in other places along the 

 shores which the deadly malaria renders nearly unfit for hu- 

 man abode. In such cases the Buffaloes live almost in the 

 state of nature, under the guidance of armed herdsmen, who 

 acquire by habit a wonderful command over them. Often 

 they are brought to Rome to be baited in the public shows 

 by trained combatants, who exhibit surprising feats of courage 

 and address. 



The Buffalo owes his general diffusion in the domesticated 

 state to his hardiness, to his power of subsisting on coarse food, 

 and to his great strength and fitness for labour. It becomes 

 a question, whether it would be expedient to carry him be- 

 yond the countries in which he is now naturalized, to others 

 more distant, as France, Holland, and England. The ques- 

 tion, it is believed, must be answered in the negative. The 

 Buffalo is really the creature of the warmer countries, and 

 his superiority over the Domestic Ox continually diminishes 

 as we arrive at countries where the common grasses become 

 abundant. He is in all cases, indeed, to be preferred for 

 physical strength and endurance of labour to the Ox, but his 

 pace is slow, and his action sluggish. In this country he 

 cannot in any degree be compared to the Horse for the active 

 labours of the road and farm, while the flesh would be in no 

 demand, and the milk yielded by the cow would be too incon- 

 siderable to be of value for the dairy. 



The Bubaline family likewise appears in Africa, and with 

 such modifications of form as the peculiar physical condition 

 of this vast continent produces in so many animal species. 

 Although it may be the Asiatic Buffalo which has been do- 

 mesticated in Egypt, and perhaps along the southern shores 

 of the Mediterranean, yet it follows in no degree, that species 

 or varieties proper to that continent have not been subdued. 



