CONCERNING THE COW HEESELF 15 



Doubtless it is true that with the progress of 

 domestication our animals, even as man himself, 

 are leaving behind them many characters which 

 were once supremely vital, but under changed en- 

 vironment are first disused and then forgotten. 

 A number of such questions are connected with 

 baby calves and bovine motherhood. 



Unquestionably there was a time when the cow 

 brought forth her young only in the spring, merely 

 because it was then that the weather was warm 

 and the grass green and abundant, and hence the 

 calf bom then stood the best chance of survival; 

 and so by the stern law of biology, this spring-time 

 birth became a firmly fixed character of the cow, 

 ingrained into her very constitution through long 

 centuries. But when cattle come to be kept under 

 the entirely artificial conditions of regular care 

 and certain shelter and assured food supply at all 

 seasons, this spring-time birth habit ceased to be 

 advantageous and has been largely lost, although 

 it seems that even now the birth time tends to 

 coincide with the ascending sun. 



On the other hand, as has been noted, sheep seem 

 in some ways to be more truly domesticated than 

 cattle, but so far as the lambing time is concerned, 

 thejr obey ancestral habits more closely than the 

 cow. The mating instinct in sheep lies practic- 

 ally dormant during the summer months, arousing 

 only when the cool autumn nights come on; and 

 so the normal lamb is bom with the coming of 



