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PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
All the affections of the noble and pacific coadjutor with man, 
denote the innocence and purity of his manners ; his passionate 
taste for salt — emblem of cleanness and wealth — reveals his attrac- 
tions for useful work, productive of well-being. The power of his 
efforts and his gratitude toward his master are proportioned to the 
cai’e that is taken of him. Whole races of these animals have 
been seen to carry their deference for man so far as to abdicate 
their head-dress, which seemed to disquiet their master. 
France, holy land of charity, where the rights of the laborer 
have never been forgotten in theory, but only in fact, has always 
shown a deep aversion to the bull-fight. 
Poor Spanish people ! It is this, too, which has drained the 
bull fqr the chase, for a chase of surprise and assassination. The 
poor beast, compelled to obey, has lent itself to the treachery. It 
serves to mask the hunter, who drives it before him and glides 
behind it within range of the unsuspecting game that he wants to 
murder. Spain has paid dear enough for her demoralizing pas- 
sion for bull-fights, tobacco, the inquisition, and inglorious hunts : 
Let us not overwhelm her with our anger. 
I pass in silence the merits and virtues of the Cow — nourishing 
mother of all of us — that good friend of children, whose rosy 
teats, swelled with their white liquor, symbolize so clearly the 
fecundity of nature. I say nothing of that admirable sentiment 
of tenderness and paternal foresight, which urges all animals, 
male, female, and neuter, to associate and to unite by squadrons 
in the presence of danger ; which inspires them with the idea of 
placing the newly born in the center of their circular groups, pre- 
senting their fronts to the enemy. I only say that if there is a- 
beast of the good God upon the earth, it is the ox, and that I 
never pass before a yoke of these brave creatures without thank- 
ing them, without silently saluting them from my heart, while 
I should pass ten times before a minister of finance, in full cos- 
tume, without experiencing the least necessity of taking off my 
hat to him. 
It has occurred to me two or three times in my life, to possess 
an atom of power. I consider that I worthily employed it when I 
punished all the executioners of beasts that fell under my hand. 
