24 THE OX AND THE DAIEY. 



be done is to clear the stomach-bag, and freely washing out 

 the contents by means of the stomach-pump, plenty of warm 

 water being used, and the operation being persevered in till 

 no particle remains behind ; brisk aperients should then be 

 given, followed by carminatives. 



It is a remarkable fact that, although the ox is decidedly 

 herbivorous, yet in some countries it is fed, during a part of 

 the year at least, on a proportion of animal diet. In Norway, 

 for example, the herds and flocks are driven to the mountains, 

 and are there depastured ; but during the long winter they 

 are housed and fed partially on the hay grown within the im- 

 mediate precincts of the farm, and brought from the hills, 

 and more plentifully on a kind of food which, to our English 

 farmer, must appear very strange and disgusting, but which 

 the cattle are said to relish very much. This food consists 

 of a thick gelatinous soup, made by boiling the heads of fish, 

 and mixing horse-dung with the broth. The boat of the 

 farmer in Norway supplies not only himself and his family 

 with the staple portion of his winter subsistence, but his cows 

 also. A writer in the * Edinburgh Journal of Natural History* 

 says : " We are assured by M. Yvart, that in Auvergne, fat 

 soups are given to cattle, especially when sick or enfeebled, 

 for the purpose of invigorating them. The same practice is 

 observed in some parts of North America, where the country 

 people mix, in winter, fat broth with the vegetables given to 

 their cattle, in order to render them more capable of resisting 

 the severity of the weather. These broths have been long 

 considered efficacious by veterinary practitioners of our own 

 country, in restoring horses which have been enfeebled 

 through long illness. It is said by Peall to be a common 

 practice in some parts of India to mix animal substances with 

 the grain given to feeble horses, and to boil the mixture into 

 a sort of paste, which soon brings them into good condition, 

 and restores their vigour. Pallas tells us, that the Kussian 

 boors make use of the dried flesh of the hamster reduced to 

 powder, and mixed with oats, and that this occasions their 

 horses to acquire a sudden and extraordinary degree of embon- 

 point. Anderson relates in his history of Iceland, that the 

 inhabitants feed their horses with dried fish when the cold is 

 very intense, and that these animals are extremely vigorous, 

 though small. We also know that in the Feroe Islands, the 

 Orkneys, the Western Islands, and in Norway, where the 

 climate is still very cold, this practice is also adopted; and it 



