SUPPLEMENT. 



733 



long, the hind quarters broad, the legs short and fine, the skin supple and delicate, the 

 root of the tail prominent. The cows are good milkers, the bulls vicious when old, the 

 oxen good workers, and fatten easily. The first prize Bourbonnais came from M. Bel- 

 lard, of Cours-les-Barres, Cher, and most of the entries were closely of the Charolaise 

 type, hut of a red-dun color. The breed is a favorite one with the butchers, and is 

 well distributed in several departments across central France. 



The B^arnaise, Basquaise, and Urt breeds are of the same family, and have the char- 

 acter of beiag good workers and producing excellent meat. The coat varies from deep 

 red to light yellow color, the varieties showing the breed and district. The bull has a 

 specially-developed horn, and is an animal of noted courage. The breed is from the 

 Pyrenees, near Saint Jean de Luz, but stock for fattening are sent to the Landes, and so 

 are often called "Landais " cattle in the Bordeaux market, where they are highly es- 

 teemed. 



The raonntains of Aubrae, the mountains of Mezene, give names to their breeds, 

 which, feeding on fine herbage, have finely-flavored meat. The Aubrae is of a silver- 

 gray or fawn color, with large horns, black at the points. The whole animal is compact 

 and handsome, and the breed is a good one for working, fatting, or milk. The Mezene 

 has a saddle back, enormous bones, massive head, and large front-projecting horns. 

 The breed has a good constitution, and pays well for rearing and keeping." 



There remain for reference the grand open and large class of cross-breeds, of the cow 

 class, the groups of cattle, the small exhibition of young bulls, and the sheep and pig 

 classes, which may be deferred until next week. 



INVICTA. 



P. S. — I have just heard the sale price of M. Signoret's champion prize was 4,000 

 francs (£160), bought for Magazins.du Louvre. The fellow-champion made but 2,000 

 francs. M. Chaminade's champion pig sold for 1,000 francs. 



/' 



' We are not accustomed to over-fatten meat in France," writes one of the leading 

 French journals; and the same paper further declares that most of the animals sent to ■ 

 exhibitions pass the line that separates the best meat, as an article of food, from the too 

 gross animal^ which carry off the prjzes. Moreover, breeders, in preparing stock for ex- 

 hibition, disregard economy in their production, which is better studied when ordinary 

 butchers' animals are sent to market. " We are not Laplanders nor Esquimaux, to re- 

 quire such masses of fat as do the inhabitants of the Polar regions," indignantly ex- 

 claims the patriotic Frenchman, and next learnedly quotes the data pf Messrs. Lawes 

 and Gilbert, that ordinary beasts have only 19 per cent, of fat, whilst a fat prize ox has 

 30.1 of the same oily constituent — records of a very fat Shorthorn cow showing 6 inches to 

 10 inches of fat undertheskin ! However, as before observed, the fattest bullock in the 

 Paris Show was a good way behind the champions of Norwich, Birmingham, and Smith- 

 field, a finely ripened animal being a great rarity in the palace of industry. Last Tues- 

 day week, certainly, the " Mardi Gras of Paris did not have any available fat ox to rival 

 those of former days, even if carnival revels still had been in fashion. 



To walk with the catalogue — and so continue my narrative of last week — the visitor 

 to the Paris Show came to — 



Class II, section 9, for pure foreign breeds, in which there were hut four entries, aU 

 Shorthorns. And here — whilst in England there is a controversy about white cattle — 

 the first prize may be recorded as falling to the forty months old white Shorthorn of M. 

 jfeplanche, the weight being 17 cwt. 3 qrs. 90 lbs. The second prize, for a white and roan, 

 was taken by M. Nadaud, which weighed 44 lbs. more than the first-prize animal, al- 

 though four months younger. The other two entries ih this class were alike red and 

 unsuccessful. 



Class II, section 9, was the field of combat — an open class to all comers that were cross- 

 breeds. The collection was a really fine one of forty-three entries, and to which no fewer 

 than seven prizes and three honorable mentions were awarded. I put in a tabular form 

 the list: 



* Heaviest beast in show, weighing 22 cwt. 1 qr. 23 lbs. 



