124 NATURAL HISTORY. 



Every part of the Ox is of value. We eat his flesh, we wear 

 shoes soled with his skin, our candles are made from his fat, our 

 tables are joined with glue made from his hoofs, the mortar 

 of our walls is mixed with his hairs, his horns are made into 

 combs, knife handles, drinking cups, &c., his bones are used 

 instead of ivory, and the fragments ground and scattered over 

 the fields as manure, and soup is made from his tail. 



The young ox is called a calf, and is quite as useful in its 

 way as the full-grown ox. The flesh is called veal, and by 

 many preferred to the flesh of the ox or cow, which is called 

 beef: jelly is made from its feet. The stomach is salted and 

 dried, and is called rennet. Cheese is made by soaking a piece 

 of rennet in water, and pouring it into a vessel of milk. The 

 milk soon forms curd, which is placed in a press, and the watery 

 substance, called whey, squeezed from it. The curd is coloured 

 and salted, and is then cheese. 



When a number of cows are kept in the same yard, the oldest 

 cow always takes precedence, and pushes the others with her 

 horns if they interfere with her. She chooses her own rack, 

 and if she sees another rack better furnished, she dispossesses 

 the original proprietor, and with an air of ridiculous complacency 

 appropriates it to herself. None of the junior cows attempt to 

 leave the yard or enter it until she has preceded them, and so 

 jealous is she of her authority, that if any enter before her she 

 refuses to move until they have been turned out. She then 

 looks round in a dignified manner, and marches in, followed by 

 the rest of the troop. 



At Chillingham Park there is a breed of wild cattle, appa- 

 rently the descendants of the original race that overran Eng- 

 land in former years. They still retain their wild habits, and 

 when any of them must be killed, thirty or forty men go out 

 armed with rifles. A keeper mounted on a swift horse sepa- 

 rates the victim from the herd, and drives it by the concealed 

 marksmen, who speedily lay it prostrate. The colour of the 

 Chillingham breed is always white with dark red ears. 



