TREATISE ON MILCH COWS. 



51 



udder and the vulva. They consist of a kind of escutcheons of various shapes 

 and sizes, formed by the hair growing in different directions, and bounded by 

 lines where these diiferent growths of hair meet. The varieties of these escutch- 

 eons mark the different classes and orders of Cows. 



It is upon these signs that every one may rest his judgment, by attending to the 

 remarks contained in the body of the work upon the different kinds of Cows. — 

 They are what every body has seen, or been able to see ; but what no one has 

 attended to. For myself, I have persevered through all obstacles : neither fruit- 

 less expenses, which were enormous for one of my means ; nor the malice of the 

 malevolent ; nor the cold reception of the indifferent ; nor the smile of increduli- 

 ty ; nothing has been able to damp my zeal. Strong in my conviction, I have 

 been sustained by it through all my trials ; and it has always raised me up when 

 all conspired to depress me. 



CHAPTER n. 



ON THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF COWS. 

 § If Genuine Cows, 



I HAVE, as I said, established a classification of Cows ; and th *reader will have 

 become aware how much time it must have cost me to arrive at this classifica- 

 tion. Neither the language of Science nor its method is to be expected in my 

 work : I have had no other instructor than myself, and Nature has been my only 

 book. I am not pretending to write a treatise of Natural History; I am only giv- 

 ing to the public the result of my experience and observation. The suggestions 

 of my own mind at the different stages of my discovery have been my only guides. 

 In following up ray observations, it was requisite that order should be establish- 

 ed among the facts noticed by me and the thoughts to which they gave rise. To 

 designate the various figures of Ae escutcheons of the several classes, new names 

 were necessary. This order and this nomenclature are of my own inveiilion. — 

 For the purpose of coining French names, I have not ransacked Greek or Latin 

 vocabularies ; I have adopted those which suggested themselves as naturally ex- 

 pressive. If they be not formed after the rules of etymology, they are at least 

 such as every one can seize the meaning of; and my book being destined chiefly 

 for that class of men who are for the most part strangers to belles-lettres, it will 

 possess in their eyes the merit of not disguising things under the words used to 

 dignify them. 



I divide Cows into Eight Classes or families; and these classes each into eight 

 Orders. In each class, I distinguish three different Sizes ; the High, the Low 

 and the Medium. This classification embraces all kinds of Cows known to me ; 

 every individual being assignable to some one of these eight classes, and to some 

 one of the orders comprised in it. According to the Class, the Order, and the Sizv 

 of an animal, is her yield of milk : this being always found to correspond with 

 the escutcheon cljiaracteristic of each class ; some one of which escutcheons, is 

 recognized in every Cow, more or less perfectly defined and free from blemish, 

 according to the degree in which she approaches to the perfection of her class. 

 This mark consists, as I have said, of the figure, on the posterior parts of the an- 

 imal, formed by the meeting of the hair that grows or points in different direc- 



