574 Report on the Exhibition of Live- Stock at Derby. 
as the Jerseys, into fleshless, milk-making machines. If men 
can do all this, within three or four generations, by means of 
selection, it is difficult to conceive how any limit can be assigned 
to the operation of natural selection through countless ages. 
Meditation upon the wonders of a Royal Showyard should make 
converts to Darwinian doctrines. 
Moralising still upon the fitness of things, or rather the 
fitness of animals, it is striking to notice the great improve- 
ment of Jersey cattle within the last ten years. They appear to 
be better at each succeeding Show, and at Derby some of them 
were simply perfect in colour, form, and milking qualifications. 
The Judges have given such an elaborate description, that the 
Reporter's occupation is gone, so far as the Jerseys are con- 
cerned, and there is no necessity for him to allude to individual 
animals. Reference, however, must be made to the use of the 
term " escutcheon " by the Judges, as a new point or cha- 
racteristic in the standard of merit, which was taken into 
due account by them at the late Show, both in females and 
males. Though this has been accepted in America and in 
France for some time, and to some extent in England, it has not 
been mentioned before by the Judges or Reporters of this Society. 
The term " escutcheon," or " milk-mirror," as it is called in 
America, means a natural growth of the hair upon the udder and 
thighs of breeding cattle, supposed to indicate their milking pro- 
perties, or their degiees of excellence in this respect. There are 
several forms of arrangement of this hair-growth, each of which is 
said to denote a distinct milk-producing capacity. This theory 
was originally propounded by M. Guenon, a Frenchman, in 1822, 
who received much honour for it in his own country and in the 
United States, where it has been adopted by the leading dairy- 
farmers. An American who was on the Commission appointed 
to test the system, writes of it thus : — " The escutcheon, then, is 
that surface on the cow's udder where the hair grows upward. 
It is not confined to the udder ; it extends upwards above the 
udder, often to the vulva, and outward upon the thighs, on both 
sides of the udder. These escutcheons are different in shape, 
size, and quality (quality means the quality of the skin, and of 
the hair growing on it) ; and these differences indicate the 
different milking qualities of the cows, including quality and 
quantity of milk, and the length of time they will give milk 
after being with calf. . . . All great milkers have very large 
escutcheons. In large ones the upturned growth often begins 
on the belly, in front of the udder, extends along between the 
teats, and upon the back part of the udder, over the whole 
width."* There are also tufts of hair {^pis), whose situation 
* ' How to select Cows, or the Guenon System.' By Willis P. Hazard, West 
■Chester, Pennsylvania. 
