THE CALF. 
277 
as have bred in confinement, is some twenty months. 
In about three months after her acquaintance 
with the male, the first symptoms of pregnancy 
are supposed to appear. She never brings forth 
more than one at a birth, and that at considerable 
intervals. 
The young animal, when first born, is not much 
larger than an ordinary calf, but its limbs are more 
bulky and rounded. Its skin, which is of a pink 
colour, smooth and soft to the touch, bears no 
resemblance to the rough, wrinkled, bark-like ex¬ 
terior that it assumes in after-life. 
The calf begins to nibble and suck at the teats 
(of which there are two, placed a little behind the 
fore-legs) soon after birth, not, however, with its 
proboscis, as, until lately, was generally believed, 
but with the mouth. Whilst sucking, the calf 
presses the breast with its tiny trunk, which, by 
natural instinct, it knows will make the milk flow 
more readily into the mouth ; and this circumstance, 
no doubt, has given rise to the fable in question ; 
one, strange to say, adopted by Buffon and other 
great authorities. 
The mother, it should be remarked, never lies 
down to give her young suck; hence it often 
happens that, when the dam is tall, she is obliged 
to bend her body towards the calf, to enable it to 
reach the nipple with its mouth; and so sensible 
are the attendants of this, that it is a common prac¬ 
tice with them to raise a small mound of earth, six 
to eight inches high, for the young one to stand on, 
and thus save the mother the trouble of bending 
