THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
month old. The most common color is a light ashy gray, which may shade 
off into cream color, or even milk-white; but various tints of red or brown 
are often met with, and occasionally black individuals are seen. In dis- 
position these cattle are always gentle, and the larger varieties are employed 
in India for drawing native carriages. The voice of the humped cattle is 
more of a grunt than a low; and these animals differ from European cattle 
in habits, insomuch as they but seldom seek the shade, and never stand 
knee-deep in water.”’ 
In a most entertaining chapter of the elder Kipling’s book, 
“Beast and Man in India,” " we get a graphic picture of the 
cow as the servant and friend of the Hindoo, and the venerated 
symbol of the most precious cult in his religion. 
“The peculiar sanctity of the animal may be a degradation of a poetical 
Aryan idea, and the cow — originally used as a symbol of the clouds attend- 
Sanetity af ant on the sun god — may have succeeded by a Process of 
Cow in materialization to honors for which she was not intended, 
ce but she is now firmly enthroned in the Hindoo pantheon... . 
“Though there is a bewildering variety of local breeds, some broad dif- 
ferences may be easily learned. The backward slope of the horns of the 
large and small breeds of Mysore cattle, — perhaps the most popular type 
in use, — the royal bearing of the splendid white and fawn oxen of Guzerat, 
and transport and artillery cattle bred in the government farms, at once 
strike the eye. These are the aristocrats of the race, but they have appe- 
tites proportioned to their size, and are too costly for the ordinary culti- 
vator.... On the wide alluvial plains, where the people are thickly planted, 
a small, slender, and colorless cow seems to be the usual poor man’s animal. 
The well-to-do keep breeds with foreign names and of stouter build. On 
the great basin of volcanic trap or basalt, which includes much of western 
India, the cattle are more square in shape, large in bone, and varied in color. 
“The richer pastures and cold winters of Kashmir and the hill country 
near develop a sturdy, square-headed, short-legged race, with a coarse 
coat like that of the English cow. In the Himalaya, where the grass is 
deficient in nourishing power, there are breeds of tiny, neatly formed ani- 
mals, with coats that look like black or brown cotton velvet. These pasture 
on the mountain side, climbing almost as cleverly as goats, and their graz- 
ing paths, trodden for centuries, have covered leagues of steep slope with 
a scale-work pattern of wonderful regularity when seen from afar; ... but 
the beast at its best is a true Hindoo of the plains.” 
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