126 BIEDS AND POETS 



finding this ruse does not succeed, it mounts to its 

 feet, bleats loudly and fiercely, and charges desper- 

 ately upon the intruder. But it recovers from 

 this wild scare in a little while, and never shows 

 signs of it again. 



The habit of the cow, also, in eating the placenta, 

 looks to me like a vestige of her former wild in- 

 stincts, — the instinct to remove everything that 

 would give the wild beasts a clew or a scent, and so 

 attract them to her helpless young. 



How wise and sagacious the cows become that 

 run upon the street, or pick their living along the 

 highway ! The mystery of gates and bars is at last 

 solved to them. They ponder over them by night, 

 they lurk about them by day, till they acquire a new 

 sense, — till they become en I'appoi't with them and 

 know when they are open and unguarded. The 

 garden gate, if it open into the highway at any 

 point, is never out of the mind of these roadsters, 

 or out of their calculations. They calculate upon 

 the chances of its being left open a certaui number 

 of times in the season; and if it be but once, and 

 only for five minutes, your cabbage and sweet corn 

 suffer. What villager, or countryman either, has 

 not been awakened at night by the squeaking and 

 crunching of those piratical jaws under the window, 

 or ill the direction of the vegetable patch ? I have 

 had the cows, after they had eaten up my garden, 

 break into the stable where my own milcher was 

 tied, and gore her and devour her meal. Yes, life 

 presents but one absorbing problem to the street 



