THE COW, MENTALLY 35 



pattern or irregularity of color markings? Or 

 what shall we say of her horns when they may be 

 wide-spreading and very large or small and 

 "crumpled," when they may be black-tipped or 

 ivory white or yet the color of amber, or not in- 

 frequently they may be entirely absent? What is 

 the trick of language that may enable the dweller 

 on Mars to vizualize her? Plainly the cow cannot 

 be described in the few terse, zoological, almost 

 mathematical phrases that might picture the rac- 

 coon. At best we must describe her as a type 

 rather than a sharply cut species. 



The most interesting traits of the cow are not 

 physical but mental. Every farm boy who has 

 lived with her and driven her from pasture and 

 milked her and taught the calf to drink knows 

 that she has a rather definite psychology. 



I think I can uphold the contention that most 

 animals under domestication (the horse and dog 

 being exceptions) are mentally degenerating as 

 compared with their wild forebears. Even 

 civilized man has degenerated in some respects, or 

 perhaps a kindlier statement would be that some 

 powers which he once possessed have been allowed 

 to fall into disuse. Stewart Edward White writes 

 that he has seen the Indian of the Canadian wilds 

 stoop and smell the footprint of a moose and then 

 promptly announce whether it was made within 

 an hour or a day — a performance inconceivable to 

 the civilized white man. Doubtless, we are not as 



