ANIMALS. 523 



clievving its food. Tims the cow often declines from this single 

 cause ; for as it is obliged to eat a great deal to support life, and 

 as the smoothness of the teeth makes the difficulty of chewing 

 great, a sufficient quantity of food cannot be supplied to the 

 stomach. Thus the poor animal sinks in the midst of plenty, 

 and every year grows leaner and leaner, till it dies. 



The horns are another and a surer method of determining 

 this animal's age. At three years old it sheds its horny,* and 

 new ones arise in their place, which continue as long as it lives ; 

 at four years of age, the cow has small pointed, neat, smooth 

 horns, thickest near the head ; at five, the horns become larger, 

 and are marked round with the former year's growth. Thus, 

 while the animal contiiuies to live, the horns continue to lengthen ; 

 and every year a new ring is added at the root ; so that allowing 

 three years before their appearance, and then reckoning the imm- 

 ber of rings, we have, in both together, the animal's age exactly. 



As we have indisputably the best breed of horned cattle of 

 any in Europe, so it was not without the same assiduity that we 

 c:iiiie to excel in these, as in our horses. The breed of cows 

 has been entirely improved by a foreign mixture, properly adapt- 

 ed to supply the imperfections of our own. Such as are purely 

 British are far inferior in size to those on many parts of the 

 continent ; but those which we have thus improved by far ex. 

 eel all others. Our Lincolnshire kind derive their size from 

 the Holstein breed ; and the large hornless cattle that are bred 

 in some parts of England came originally from Poland. We 

 were once famous for a wild breed of these animals, but these 

 have long since been worn out ; and perhaps no kingdom in 

 Europe can furnish so few wild animals of all kinds as our 

 own.f Cultivation and agriculture are sure to banish these 



* This is a mistake : the horns are not cast ; but at the age of three years, 

 tlif iiniin;il nitis off a very slight external shell oiatiug from them. 



t The White Urus {Urus Scoticus) is a wild breed of the Ox, the pro- 

 bable remains of the genuine Urua. It is of small size, and ranged formerly 

 through the woods of southern Scotland and the north of England. When 

 this breed was exterminated from the open forests is unknown; hut some 

 time before the reformation, the remnants were already contined in pai ks be- 

 longing to ecclesiastical establishments, from whence they were transfer- 

 red at the dissolution to that of Drumlaiig, and other places. Tho-^e in the 

 park of r.urton Constable were all destroyed in the middle r)f the last cen. 

 tiiry by a distemper. The race is entirely of a white lolour ; the mnz/.le 

 invariably black; the iuside of the car, and about oMc-lliird part of the onU 



