356 
MISCELLANEA. 
came so near, as even to touch my hat while passing projecting 
rocks. It was some time before I reached the plain, when they 
appeared to hold a noisy council, either about what they had done, 
or intended doing. Levelling my piece at two that seemed the most 
fierce, as I was about to touch the trigger, the thought occurred, “ I 
have escaped, let me be thankful therefore I left them uninjured, 
perhaps with the gratification of having given me a fright. — 
Moffat's Scenes and Labours in Southern Africa . 
Taking to Business Nat’ral. 
The following expression of professional opinion (reported for 
the Boston Atlas) is said to have been given, verbatim, by a cow- 
doctor, who was called as a witness in the late trial of an action in 
the Court of Common Pleas at Boston. The subject-matter of 
inquiry was the cause of the death of a certain valuable cow. “ I 
am sixty years old, and live in Scituate — I am a cow doctor — I 
have followed the business these forty years — I doctor sheep, hogs, 
and horned critters — I never read no books on critters. I took to 
the business nat’ral ; I doctor in Scituate, Hanover, Hanson, and all 
about. Mr. Maynard and Mr. Litchfield came to me about this 
case : I told ’em to give her a pint-and-a-half of castor ile, and, if 
they had none of that, to give her a pint of lamp ile, or a pound of 
hog’s lard. I went down to see her the Friday before she died — 
I gave her a dose of thorough-stalk tea, strong — and injections. I 
went down to see her again on Saturday, and gave her another 
dose and injection. I thought, if I could start her idees up a little 
and jog natur, she would get along : she revived up, and I left her. 
— I went down agin Sunday morning about half-past ten o’clock, 
and found her ded as a herrin. I was mightily struck up — we 
skinned her, and snaked her out in the snow ; I then split her open 
and examined her. She had what I called the overflow of the gall 
and stoppage, and a caTf in her which I should say would weigh 
ninety or hundred weight : there was as much as five buckets of 
water in her calf bag, and none in her bladder. I opened her 
paunch, and found I should say a bushel basket full of fox-grass 
hay, and nothing else. I found a peck or more in her manifold all 
matted together and dried on. I believe the eating that fox-grass 
hay gave her the stoppage, and no ile or medicine could start it. 
My neighbours use this fox-grass hay. It will do for young critters 
that browse, but I don’t believe there was ever tallar enough made 
by using it to grease a musquito’s bill. I never see any critter eat 
it growing, but have often seen grasshoppers running away from 
it, for their life. I had some spirits with me when I examined the 
cow, but, as she did not need it, I took a dose myself.” 
