THE OX AND THE DAIKY. 



Auvergne. Their heavy contour, their black colour, their 

 savage habits, and their great strength, give them a certain 

 degree of similarity to the massive buffalo. It is this fierce 

 breed winch furnishes the bulls for the combats of the amphi- 

 theatre, which still, from time to time, are exhibited at Nimes 

 and at Tarascon. 



Such are the principal breeds of France, as detailed by M. 

 Desmarest ; but, as he observes, there are innumerable shades 

 of variation ; and, we may add, that changes and improve- 

 ments are perpetually taking place, insomuch that old breeds 

 are gradually giving place to new, or, by admixture, are losing 

 their original characters. In Normandy, celebrated for its 

 pasture lands, we have seen excellent cattle, not at all resem- 

 bling the Alderney breed, but large, straight -backed, deep, and 

 broad -breasted, well barrelled, short-horned, and mottled red 

 and white. In other parts of France, we have seen small and 

 meagre cattle, without the slightest pretensions to blood, but 

 at the same time, tolerable milkers. A writer in the Penny 

 Magazine says, " The Norman breed gives the character to 

 all the cattle usually met with in the North of France, except 

 near the Rhine. They are mostly of a light red colour, 

 spotted with white ; their horns are short, and stand well out 

 from the forehead, turning up with a black tip ; the legs fine 

 and slender, the hips high, and the thighs thin. The cows 

 are good milkers, and the milk is rich. They are in general 

 extremely lean, which is owing, in a great measure, to the 

 scanty food they gather by the sides of the roads and along the 

 grass balks which divide the fields. In Normandy itself they 

 have good pastures, and the cattle are larger and look better. 



The Alderney and Jersey breeds, which, from the extreme 

 richness of their milk, are much prized in gentlemen's dairies 

 in England, are smaller varieties of the Norman, with shorter 

 horns, more turned in, and a more deer-like form. 



In Switzerland there are two or three breeds of active, 

 handsome cattle, well adapted for ranging the mountain pas- 

 tures ; of these the most celebrated is the Freyburg stock, 

 much cultivated in the rich grounds between the mountains 

 in the neighbourhood of Gruyeres, or Greyerz, so celebrated 

 for its cheese ; the cows are of good size, wide in the flanks, 

 strong in the horn, and short in tha bone ; the set-on of the 

 tail is prominent, and detracts from their appearance ; as 

 milkers they are excellent, either when ranging in their pas- 

 tures, or when stalled and fed with clover, hay, and lucern. 



