40 THE COW 



when scanty she must industriously pick all day 

 for a living and even then is not fully fed, as the 

 milk pail only too plainly attests. The real ro- 

 mance for the cow as well as her owner lies in those 

 first golden weeks of early summer. 



The gregarious instinct in cows is strong, and 

 they tend to feed in a fairly compact herd. As you 

 come near them you can see the long almost pre- 

 hensile tongues gathering and sweeping the grass 

 into the grasp of the jaws, and you can hear the 

 gentle tearing sound as it is pulled rather than 

 bitten off. An hour or two later the cows will be 

 lying down, often closely bunched together, and 

 in hot weather they are wise enough to choose the 

 shady borders of the wood. They enjoy water in 

 summer, and will often stand leg deep in bright 

 running streams or ford considerable rivers. They 

 do not, however, have the habit of wallowing in 

 the mud after the manner of their close relative, 

 the buffalo. 



Unquestionably, there is a sort of mass-psychol- 

 ogy in a herd which leads them all to do the same 

 thing at about the same time. The farm boy who 

 has always "brought" the cows as a part of his 

 boyhood tasks well knows that if a part of the herd 

 thinks it is about time to move toward the bars, 

 all of them will prove to be of the same mind. Yet 

 this same farm boy also knows that an occasional 

 cow is a very poor mixer and will commonly be 



