214 
THE INDIAN OX OR ZEBU. 
sufferers shout and make a noisej to drive him away ; 
but he soon despises this vociferation, and eats hearti- 
ly until he is satisfied. These consecrated bulls be- 
come in consequence of these free quarters veiy fat, 
and are fine animals to look at, but very destructive. 
The wives are given away to Brahmins, and he sel- 
dom sees them again. The two last Rajahs of Di- 
najepoor, among other expedients which they devised 
with great success to ruin themselves, consecrated 
in this manner about two thousand cows, and as no 
person presumed to molest the sacred animals, the 
vicinity soon became desolate, and the magistrate 
was at last compelled to sell them all, with the ex- 
ception of one hundred, which were left to the widow 
to soothe her misfortune.”* 
These breeds have all the inward grunting call 
heard in the Yak and some other Indian animals, 
not the open bellow of the true bull, and this has led 
to the conjecture that there was some intermixture 
between the European domestic races and the wild 
animals of India. 
The domestic breeds of cattle in Europe are ex- 
tremely numerous, vai-ying with the nature and cli- 
mate of the district, according as their proprietors have 
desired an animal fitted for the dairy or the butcher. 
As in the sheep, they had not the improvement 
of the fleece to assist in the returns of profit, and 
Hamilton’s Hescript. of Hindostan. 
