80 
NUMBER OF QUADRUPEDS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
States for I860,* the total number of horses in all the States 
of the American Union, was, in round numbers, 7,800,000 ; 
of asses and mules, 1,800,000; of the ox tribe, 29,000,000 ;f ot 
sheep, 25,000,000 ; and of swine, 89,000,000. The only North 
1690, p. 110, it would seem that mice at least were not very common in 
ancient Rome. Among the capricious freaks of that emperor, it is said 
that he undertook to investigate the statistics of the arachnoid population 
of the capital, and that 10,000 pounds of spiders (or spiders’ webs—for 
aranea is equivocal) were readily collected; hut when he got up a mouso 
show, he thought ten thousand mice a very fair number. I believe as 
many might almost be found in a single palace in modern Rome. Rats are 
not less numerous in all great cities, and in Paris, where their skins are 
used for gloves, and their flesh, it is whispered, in some very complex and 
equivocal dishes, they are caught by legions. I have read of a manufac¬ 
turer who contracted to buy of the rat catchers, at a high price, all the 
rat skins they could furnish before a certain date, and failed, within a week, 
for want of capital, when the stock of peltry had run up to 600,000. 
* Bigelow, Les fitats Unis en 1863, pp. 379, 380. In the same para¬ 
graph this volume states the number of animals slaughtered in the United 
States by butchers, in 1859, at 212,871,653. This is an error of the press. 
Number is confounded with value. A reference to the tables of the census 
shows that the animals slaughtered that year were estimated at 212,871,653 
dollars ; the number of head is not given. The wild horses and horned 
cattle of the prairies and the horses of the Indians are not included in 
the returns. 
t Of this total number, 2,240,000, or nearly nine per cent., are reported 
as working oxen. This would strike European, and especially English 
agriculturists, as a large proportion ; but it is explained by the difference 
between a new country and an old, in the conditions which determine the 
employment of animal labor. Oxen are very generally used in the United 
States and Canada for hauling timber and firewood through and from tho 
forests; for ploughing in ground still full of rocks, stumps, and roots ; for 
breaking up the new soil of the prairies with its strong matting of native 
grasses, and for the transportation of heavy loads over the rough roads of 
the interior. In all these cases, the frequent obstructions to the passage 
of the timber, the plough, and the sled or cart, are a source of constant 
danger to the animals, the vehicles, and the harness, and the slow and 
steady step of the ox is attended with much less risk than the swift and 
sudden movements of the impatient horse. It is surprising to see the 
sagacity with which the dull and clumsy ox—hampered as he is by the 
rigid yoke, the most absurd implement of draught ever contrived by man— 
picks his way, when once trained to forest work, among rocks and roots, 
