136 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



base of the horns. Nature has exactly adapted 

 the structure of the head and neck of the ox for 

 pushing ; and since a pull is only a push with 

 a string to it, depend upon it this is the most 

 advantageous way for a team of oxen to draw 

 a load. 



When we take milk with our tea, or butter or 

 cheese with our bread, we are conniving at what 

 is, when looked at in one way, a particularly 

 heartless form of theft. Did nature, in the 

 first place, provide the milk for our benefit ? 

 Not at all : it is the provision for the poor 

 innocent calf, and we have filched his property 

 from him by force or trickery. But, passing 

 over the moral aspect of the question — which 

 you will generally find is the most discreet 

 method when we are discussing our dealings 

 with the lower animals — how is it that the 

 cow is so especially useful in yielding us an 

 abundant supply of milk ? 



The answer is, Because she is naturally a 

 forest animal, which had often to leave her 

 baby behind and to wander far for food. Wild 

 cattle hide their young calves in the thickets. 

 Unlike the colt, the calf has but feeble loco- 

 motive powers, and therefore it could not ac- 



