RUMINANTIA. 219 



in each sex, are round, pointed, and curved, sup- 

 ported on a bony centre, which is very porous. 

 Their flesh is the most nutritious, the most diges- 

 tible, and the most agreeable, of all animal food ; 

 and is most extensively consumed. 



The races are pretty equably distributed as to 

 geographical range : besides the common Ox, which 

 has been carried by man whithersoever he has mi- 

 grated, and which seems originally to have been 

 European or Asiatic ; one is certainly a native of 

 Europe, three of Asia, one of South Africa, and two 

 of North America. South America has no native 

 representative of the genus. 



Of these species, the common Ox (H. Taurus) is 

 undoubtedly the most important. Like most of our 

 domestic quadrupeds, its original stock is a matter 

 of doubt and dispute : perhaps the fact may be, as 

 we have already hinted in speaking of another ani- 

 mal, that it was originally given to man as the servile 

 lightener of his penal toil ; or at least, that it was 

 subdued at a period so early, that even the pristine 

 terrigenes themselves, with their offspring, were made 

 to bow their noble necks to the yoke. And now 

 even in those countries where other races are domes- 

 ticated, the Taurus, in some or other of its nume- 

 rous varieties, flourishes ; bearing the vertical sun 

 of India, as well as the long and cheerless winter 

 of Sweden. In our own country it is well known 

 how many of our necessaries and comforts are de- 

 pendent on its labours, its flesh, its milk, its hide, 

 its horns, its hoofs, its bones, its blood. It is in 

 Devonshire that the docility and strength of this 



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