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CASSELL'S POPULAR NATURAL, HISTORY. 



' I listen but no faculty of mine 

 Avails those modulations to detect, 

 Which, heard in foreign lands, the Swiss affect 

 With temlerest passion ; leaving him to pine 

 (So fame reports) and die his sweet-breath'd kine 

 Kemembering, and green Alpine pastures decked 

 With venial flowers. Yet may we not reject 



The tale as fabulous. Here while I recline, 

 Mindful how others by this simple strain 

 Are moved, for me upon this mountain named 

 Of God himself from dread pre-eminence- 

 Aspiring thoughts, by memory reclaimed, 

 Yield to the music's touching influence; 

 And joys of distant home my heart enchain." 



THE ZEBU* 



WHATEVER be the origin of this animal, it presents marked peculiarities which clearly characterise it. 

 Narrow, high withers, surmounted by a large, fatty hump, and arched back rising at the haunches and 

 suddenly falling to the tail; slender limbs; a large, pendulous dewlap falling in folds; long, pendent 

 e:ivs ; and a peculiai-ly mild expression of the eye, proclaim the Zebu race varying in size from that 

 of our largest cattle to that of a young calf. 





THE BRAHMIN BULL. 



This breed is spread over India, China, and the Indian Islands ; it is also found in Madagascar 

 and on the eastern coast of Africa, in the interior regions and parts of the western coast, and is 

 u-eil for the ordinary purposes of draught and burden. In Upper Egypt, Abyssinia, and Ethiopia, it 

 is now almost exclusively prevalent ; but Burckhardt states that in Lower Egypt the zebu is unknown. 

 In the ancient Egyptian representations of animals, both the humped race and the ordinary ox with 

 long horns are clearly depicted. It is the zebu ox which is sculptured in the cave-temples of 

 Ellora, and the seven pagodas, as they are commonly called, at Mahnmalaipur, on the Coromandel 

 '<>:i-4. Thus we have proofs of the high antiquity of this breed, of its distinctness at a remote period 

 from the ordinary ox, and of its peculiar characters being what we now see them. 



The beautiful form and sleek appearance of the Brahmin bulls particularly engaged the attention 

 of Bishop Heber. The first which he met with was grazing in a green paddy-field, and was branded 

 on tlir li nun-lies \\ it.li the emblem of Siva. This bull crossed the bishop's path tame and fearless, and, 

 seeing some grass in the hands of a Kuropean, coolly walked up and smelt it. These -privileged bulls are 



v 



* Bos Taurus. Yar. Indicus. 



