WAYS OF NATURE 



I have known a cow to put her head between two 

 trees in the woods — a kind of natural stanchion — 

 and not have wit enough to get it out again, though 

 she could have done so at once by lifting her head 

 to a horizontal position. But the best instance I 

 know of the grotesque ignorance of a cow is given by 

 Hamerton in his " Chapters on Animals." The cow 

 would not " give down " her milk unless she had her 

 calf before her. But her calf had died, so the herds- 

 man took the skin of the calf, stuffed it with hay, and 

 stood it up before the inconsolable mother. Instantly 

 she proceeded to lick it and to yield her milk. One 

 day, in licking it, she ripped open the seams, and out 

 roUed the hay. This the mother at once proceeded to 

 eat, without any look of surprise or alarm. She hked 

 hay herself, her acquaintance with it was of long 

 standing, and what more natural to her than that 

 her calf should turn out to be made of hay! Yet 

 this very cow that did not know her calf from a bale 

 of hay would have defended her young against the 

 attack of a bear or a wolf in the most skillful and 

 heroic manner; and the horse that was nearly fright- 

 ened out of its skin by a white Stone, or by the flutter 

 of a piece of newspaper by the roadside, would find 

 its way back home over a long stretch of country, or 

 find its way to water in the desert, with a certainty 

 you or I could not approach. 



The hen-hawk that the farm-boy finds so diffi- 

 cult to approach with his gun will yet alight upon 

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