390 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



as the grazier. If even a moderate mUker, yet she will be a 

 great eater, and never pay for her food. 



"Color is immaterial, and depends on the breed. 



TEMPERAMENT AND CONSTITUTION. 



"Animals, hke human beings, are differently developed in 

 their nervous, sanguineous, muscular, and lymphatic constitu- 

 tions, and their tempers and dispositions vary accordingly. Each 

 breed of cattle is characterized by peculiarities of temper, activ- 

 ity, and endurance. The muscular temperament is disappearing 

 before the march of improvement, as animals of this description 

 are neither good for the grazier nor the dairy, being fleshy, thick- 

 skinned, and poor milkers. Constitution is the result of natural 

 temperament and physical configuration, but each temperament 

 has its own particular diseases to which it is liable. The nervous 

 temperament predisposes to fevers, the sanguine to inflamma- 

 tiot\s, and the lymphatic to lung diseases ; but as these tempera- 

 ments are never found distinct, but always combined together in 

 some proportion or other, the peculiar diseases to which these 

 unions give rise, are as endless as the constitutions themselves. 



"Atmospheric causes, and artificial treatment, also impress 

 certain physiological characteristics upon cattle. Exposure to 

 cold, when young, has a tendency to develop those parts of the 

 system, whose ofiSce it is to protect the vital functions from being 

 injured by this cause. When an animal is early exposed to cold, 

 the hide thickens, and becomes covered with long, thick hair. 

 It becomes inured to exposure, and is little affected by atmos- 

 pheric changes. A long continuance of such treatment, as in 

 the case of the Scotch Highland cattle, from one generation to 

 another, soon impresses a peculiar habit of growth upon them; 

 and this, in time, settles into a fixed and permanent temperament, 

 or physiological character. Even, however, among individuals 

 of the same breed, exposed to the same external influences, there 



