154 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



are granted their respective positions (often 

 after a somewhat hot debate), that the animals 

 readily recognise whatever moral or other 

 qualities tell in settling bovine precedence/ 

 Occasionally one finds, when trying to study 

 the social and political institutions among oxen 

 — as I have often done during my boyhood 

 when ensconced in a snug bay of the straw- 

 stack overlooking the ox-yard — that matters are 

 somewhat more complicated than they at first 

 appear. Thus A may be the "boss -ox," B 

 the second, C the third, D the fourth, and so 

 on ; that is to say, each of these animals is 

 able to take precedence of the one next be- 

 low him. But if you remove some of the 

 series you will find sometimes that, although 

 B was master of C, and therefore " so much 

 the more " ought to be master of E or F, 

 this is not always the case. For the practical 

 purposes of the oxmen, however, the order of 

 natural rank, whatever it may depend upon, 

 proves useful in settling the place of the ani- 

 mal in the team and in the stall, and in pre- 

 venting contests between these powerful long- 

 horned brutes. 



Mr Francis Galton, speaking of the differ- 



