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UDAL TENURE. 
042 
UDDER. 
U 
UDAL TENURE. An old and peculiar local 
tenure in Orkney and Shetland. A proprietor 
of land holding by this tenure pays certain du- 
ties to the lessee of the crown-rents and granter 
of the bishop’s rents, and pays also his propor- 
tion of any general tax which is levied on the 
kingdom, but requires no other title to his pro- 
perty than mere possession, certified in the 
rental book of the lessee of the crown-rents. But 
holders by udal tenure long ago began to find 
their seeming privilege a serious evil, and were 
glad to exchange it for a system of regular char- 
ters and sasines. 
UDDER. The glandular organ of a cow, a 
mare, an ewe, or other female mammal which 
secretes milk. The udder of the cow is an 
unique mass, composed of two symmetrical parts, 
simply united to each other by a cellular tissue, 
lax, and very abundant; and each of the parts 
comprises two divisions or quarters, which con- 
sist of many small granules, and are connected 
together by a compact laminous tissue; and 
from each quarter proceed systems of ducts, 
which form successive unions and confluences, 
somewhat in the manner of the many affluents 
of a large river, till they terminate in one grand 
excretory canal, which passes down through the 
elongated mammilary body called the teat. Its 
lactiferous tubes, however, do not, as might be 
supposed, proceed exactly from smaller to larger 
ducts by a gradual and regular enlargement, 
because it would not have been proper that the 
secretion of milk should escape as it was formed, 
and therefore we find an apparatus adapted for 
the purpose of retaining it for a proper time. 
This apparatus is to be found both in the teat 
and in the internal construction of the udder. 
The teat resembles a funnel in shape, and some- 
what in office; and it is possessed of a consider- 
able degree of elasticity. It seems formed prin- 
cipally of the cutis with some muscular fibres; 
and it is covered on the outside by cuticle, like 
every other part of the body; but the cuticle 
here not only covers the exterior, but also turns 
upwards and lines the inside of the extremity of 
the teat, as far as it is contracted, and there 
terminates by a frilled edge, the rest of the inte- 
rior of the teats and ducts being lined by mucous 
membrane. But as the udder in most animals 
is attached in a pendulous manner to the body, 
and as the weight of the column of fluid would 
press with a force which would, in every case, 
overcome the resistance of the contractions of 
the extremity, or prove oppressive to the teat, 
there is, in the internal arrangement of the 
udder, a provision made to obviate this diffi- 
culty. The various ducts, as they are united, do 
not become gradually enlarged, so as to admit 
the ready flow of milk in a continued stream to 
the teat, but are so arranged as to take off, in a 
great measure, the extreme pressure to which 
the teat is exposed. Hach main duct, as it en- 
ters into another, has a contraction produced, 
by which a kind of valvular apparatus is formed 
in such a manner as to become pouches or sacs, 
capable of containing the great body of the milk, 
In consequence of this arrangement, it is neces- 
sary that a kind of movement upwards, or lift, 
should be given to the udder, before the teat is 
drawn, to force out the milk, and by this lift the 
milk is displaced from these pouches, and escapes 
into the teat, and is then easily squeezed out ; 
while the contractions or pouches, at the same 
time, resist in a certain degree the return or 
reflux of the displaced milk. This valvular ar- 
rangement is thus a very beautiful combination 
of exquisite mechanism with organic functions; 
and readily explains why a series of lifting ac- 
tions is requisite in the artificial milking of 
the cow, why the calf, the lamb, and the colt 
jerk up their nose into the udder, and why 
the pig and the puppy push up the teat with 
their feet. The comparative smallness of the 
mare’s udder, and its having only two teats 
instead of the four of a ruminant, seem to be a 
benign provision for facilitating her speed of 
motion and severity of labour, and are amply 
and beautifully compensated by the special 
adaptation of the qualities of the milk to the 
wants of the foal. 
Inflammation in the cow’s udder is a some- | 
what common disease, and frequently assumes a 
very severe character. One cause of it is the 
simple but roguish practice of allowing the milk 
to accumulate excessively in the udder, when 
about to send cows to market, with a view of 
making them appear greater milkers than they 
really are. The consequence of this ‘hefting,’ as 
it is termed, is a painful distention of the vessels ; 
and this is frequently followed by inflammation, 
which attacks either the glandular structure or 
the cellular substance by which it is united. In 
the first case, the disease generally attacks the 
whole of one quarter, or it may extend to the 
half or whole of the udder, and is always sudden 
in its attacks, rapid in its progress, and dangerous 
and obstinate in its effects. The quarter or whole 
of the udder becomes suddenly hot, painful, and 
hard to the touch; there is a degree of sympto- 
matic fever present ; the secretion of milk is par- 
