272 FIELD AND FERN. 



and vessel. To constitute a first-class vessel, the teats 

 should also be no bigger than a good large thimble. 

 Still, very often, perfectly-formed vessels are by no 

 means the best for milk, and many a cow who would 

 have won on every point would have failed if the actual 

 pail test had been applied. Still, the fashion is as 

 rigorous as ever in public, though nearly every one 

 jeers at it in private. 



The English buyers never care for an orthodox 

 vessel, but like a bad one with large teats, to prevent 

 the dairymaids or milkers from grumbling, and to 

 ensure more careful stripping. An Ayrshire lassie 

 would think it treason to murmur, and gradually she 

 gets into the habit of squeezing it with her fingers, 

 and merely working from the elbow. In England, 

 it is drawing with hand and shoulder, up and down, 

 like a peal of marriage bells. There is a good deal 

 of music in the more quiet Scottish elbow mode, and 

 we were amazingly amused once, when a narrator — 

 who seemed quite to agree with the lines that 



"Lads on lasses love to call. 

 And lasses whiles are kiming" — 



broke out over his toddy : ^'When I was a young man, 

 I've seen me dance to it like playmg the 'piaiio, if I fancied 

 the dairymaid." Later in the evening he warmed to 

 his subject, and said : " / could have married her for 

 nothing else than her milkhigj' Of course, we felt 

 bound to put more milk into our whisky (we never 

 could take it with water, hot or cold), and to assure 

 him that it was a most laudable sentiment. The cows 



