CONCERNING THE COW HBESELF 33 



The story of her domestication, if we knew it, 

 wonld be that of the race. The tale of her con- 

 quest begins when man first emerged from a wan- 

 dering hunter into a pastoralist and began to build 

 circular or mud huts beside the water-courses. 

 Before recorded history, the domesticated cow ex- 

 isted, and the earliest books of the Old Testament 

 — those that speak to us concerning the child his- 

 tory of the race — are musical with the bleating of 

 sheep and the lowing of cattle and the tinkling of 

 the bells of the camels. The domestication of ani- 

 mals and man's struggle out of savagery went on 

 side by side, because only after he had acquired 

 beasts of burden that could draw the plow or 

 move objects that were beyond his strength was 

 it possible to make any progress in agriculture or 

 permanent architecture. 



The observant farmer-naturalist of the future 

 will have new problems to challenge him, if he lives 

 in warm-temperate and hot countries, because of 

 the introduction of a very different strain of blood 

 in recent years. This strain is the zebu or Bos 

 indicus, the sacred cow of India. The zebu is intro- 

 duced with the hope that crosses with common 

 cattle will better adapt the animals to warm cli- 

 mates and diseases. One sometimes sees the marks 

 of such crosses in the lighter color, lopping ears, 

 heavy hanging dewlaps, recurving horns, hump 

 over the shoulders, and the very different eyes. 

 What permanent effect these introductions will 



