486 GuenoTLS System of Selecting Cows hy the Escutcheon, 
animal gotten by one and the same sire. Guenon says the 
characteristic signs with the males, as with the females, have a 
significant value of the highest importance : they portray the 
reproductive qualities, those having the largest and most perfect 
escutcheons possessing the greatest ability for procreating good 
milk cows. 
As also with the cows, the colour and quality of the skin, and 
the fineness of the hair, are thoroughly necessary to be first-rate. 
There is one difference — certain classes are much oftener 
found than others, and in this order : 1. Curveline ; 2. Limousin ; 
and, 3. Horizontal. The others are rarer, according to the 
order in which he gives them ; the Flanders being the most 
seldom found. 
Cause of the Escutcheon. — The escutcheon was so called, we 
presume, from its similarity to the shape of a shield ; and, on 
a first-class cow, the lower part of it will be very like it, or 
somewhat like a round-pointed shovel. On this escutcheon the 
hair will be generally of a different colour from that bordering 
it, most generally rather darker, always shorter, and more nearly 
resembling fur. It thus becomes the outward sign of the milk- 
ing and generative qualities of any cow, of any breed, that all 
may see and understand. 
Why this escutcheon is placed there, why it varies on different 
cows, and what causes it, have not yet been positively settled. 
My own impression is, that, tracing cause and effect, it is the 
outward sign of vigour and good constitution in the animal. If 
she is perfectly formed, in good health, she will generally be a 
good eater and good milker ; these points develop the blood- 
vessels and the mammary glands largely. As the arterial 
vessels terminate in veins, the more vigorous the animal, the 
larger the veins, and the more widely they ramify ; and, as they 
lay under the skin, they cause the hair to grow in a contrary 
direction. 
Monsieur Magne, who early developed Guenon's system, 
accounted for the connection of the escutcheon with the flow of 
milk in that the hair turns in the direction in which the arteries 
ramify, and that the reversed hair on the udder and adjacent 
parts indicates the termination of the arteries. which supply the 
udder with blood. 
This is the most likely explanation of these marks, and it is 
confirmed by the experience of each member of the Pennsylvania 
Commission. We have invariably noticed, where there are 
large knotty milk-veins, so called, particularly when there are 
two on the belly, and the udder is covered with prominent zig- 
zag veins, and these extend up on the perinacum, that that cow 
is a first-rate cow, and, as such, she has a first-class escutcheon. 
