34 THE COW 



be disadvantageous and hence would tend to be 

 extinguished. So in wild life our differences are 

 those of age and sex and season, but, eliminating 

 these, almost any chipmunk might sit for the por- 

 trait of his race. 



As soon, however, as we turn to domestic ani- 

 mals we find an entirely opposite condition. The 

 cow fpr thousands of years has been under the 

 control of man. With him she has crossed the 

 seas to new conditions and strange environments. 

 Because the conditions of life that surround her 

 have altered, she has changed herself to fit them. 

 This tendency toward mutation has been greatly 

 intensified by the conscious selection of man, and 

 many unusual variations that in her native wood- 

 lands would have been extinguished have been 

 encouraged under the hand of man, preserved, and 

 perpetuated. Thus, from being once almost im- 

 mutable, she has become, together with the dog 

 and domestic fowl, the most uncertain and varied 

 of animal forms. The ornithologist describes our 

 native birds with most painstaking care and 

 minute accuracy and, at the expense of infinite time 

 and patience, makes colored plates of their plum- 

 age and markings. What would he do, however, 

 if asked to describe a hen and then taken to the 

 poultry show to gather subject matter? How is it 

 possible, therefore, to describe the color of a cow 

 when she wears almost every conceivable shade 

 except the blues and greens and every possible 



