of sharpness and cunning; their life is a continued scene of stratagem and escape; but the patient ox or the deer enjoy the repast that Nature has abundantly provided-certain of subsistence, and content with security. As Nature has formed these animals with an appetite for such coarse and simple nutriment, so she has enlarged the capacity of the intestines to take in a greater supply. In the carnivorous kinds, as their food is nourishing and juicy their stomachs are but small and their intestines short; but in these, whose pasture is coarse, and where much must be accumulated before any quantity of nourishment can be obtained, their stomachs are large and numerous, and their intestines long and muscular. The bowels of a ruminating animal may be considered as an elaboratory, with vessels in it fitted for various transmutations. It requires a long and tedious process before grass can be transformed into flesh; and, for this purpose, Nature in general has furnished such animals as feed upon grass with four stomachs, through which the food successively passes and undergoes the proper separations.

Of the four stomachs with which ruminant animals are furnished, the first is called the "paunch," which receives the food after it has been slightly chewed; the second is called the "honeycomb," and is properly nothing more than a continuation of the former: these two, which are very capacious, the animal fills as fast as it can, and then lies down to ruminate which may be properly considered a kind of vomiting without effort or pain. The two stomachs above-mentioned being filled with as much as they can contain, and the grass which was slightly chewed beginning to swell with the heat of the situation, it dilates the stomachs, and these again contract upon their contents. The aliment thus squeezed has but two passages to escape at-one into the third stomach, which is very narrow, and the other back by the gullet into the mouth, which is wider. The greatest quantity, therefore, is driven back through the largest aperture into the mouth to be chewed a second time; while a small part, and that only the most liquid, is driven into the third stomach through the orifice which is so small. The food which is driven to the mouth and chewed a second time is thus rendered more soft and moist, and becomes at last liquid enough to pass into the conduit that goes to the third stomach, where it undergoes a still farther comminution. In this stomach, which is called the "manyfold," from the number of its leaves, all which tend to promote digestion, the grass has the appearance of boiled spinage, but not yet sufficiently reduced so as to make a part of the animal's nourishment: it requires the operation of the fourth stomach for this purpose, where it undergoes a complete maceration, and is separated to be turned into chyle.

But Nature has not been less careful in another respect in fitting the intestines of these animuls for their food. In the carnivorous kinds they are thin and lean; but in ruminating animals they are strong, fleshy, and well covered with fat. Every precaution seems taken that can help their digestion: their stomach is strong and muscular, the more readily to act upon its contents; their intestines are lined with fat, the better to preserve their warmth; and they are extended to a much greater length, so as to extract every part of that nourishment which their vegetable food so scantily supplies.

In this manner are all quadrupeds of the cow, the sheep, or the deer kind seen to ruminate-being thus furnished with four stomachs for the macerating of their food. These, therefore, may most properly be called the "ruminant" kinds; although there are many others that have this quality in a less observable degree. The rhino ceros, the camel, the horse, the rabbit, the marmotte, and the squirrel, all chew their cud by intervals, although they are not furnished with stomachs like the former. But not these alone, there are numberless other animals that appear to ruminate-not only birds, but fishes and

insects. Among birds are the pelican, the stork, the heron, the pigeon, and the turtle; these have a power of disgorging their food to feed their young. Among fishes are lobsters, crabs, and that fish called the "dora do." The salmon also is said to be of this number: and, if we may believe Ovid, the scarus likewise; of which he says

Of all the fish that graze beneath the flood,
He only ruminates his former food.

Of insects, the ruminating tribe is still larger-the mole, the cricket, the wasp, the drone, the bee, the grasshopper, and the beetle. All these animals either actually chew the cud or seem at least to ruminate. They have the stomach composed of muscular fibres, by means whereof the food is ground up and down in the same manner as in those which are particularly distinguished by the appellation of “ruminants."

But not these alone; men themselves have been often known to ruminate, and some even with pleasure. The accounts of these calamities (for such I must consider them) incident to our fellow-creatures are not very plea sant to read; yet I must transcribe a short one, as given us by Slare in the Philosophical Transactions, as it may in some measure show the satisfaction which the lower tribes of animals enjoy while they ruminate. The man in question was a citizen of Bristol, of about twenty years of age, and, what seemed more extraordinary still, of a ruminating family, for his father was subject to the same infirmity, or amusement, as he himself perhaps would call it. This young man usually began to chew his meat over again within about a quarter of an hour after eating. His ruminating after a full meal generally lasted about an hour and a half; nor could he sleep until his task was performed. The victuals upon the return tasted even more pleasantly than at first; and returned as if they had been beaten up in a mortar. If he ate a variety of things, that which he ate at first came up again first; and if this return was interrupted for any time it produced sickness and disorder, and he was never well till it returned. Instances of this kind, however, are rare and accidental; and it is happy for mankind that they are so. Of all other animals man spends the least time in eating; this is one of the great distinctions between us and the brute creation; and eating is a pleasure of so low a kind, that none but such as are nearly allied to the quadruped desire its prolongation.

CHAP. II

OF QUADRUPEDS OF THE COW KIND.

Of all ruminating animals that of the cow kind deserves the first rank, both for its size, its beauty, and its services. The horse is more properly an animal belonging to the rich; the sheep chiefly thrives in a flock, and requires attendance; but the cow is more especially the poor man's pride, his riches, and his support. There are many of our peasantry that have no other possession than a cow; and even of the advantages resulting from this most useful creature the poor are but the nominal possessors. Its flesh they cannot pretend to taste, since then their whole riches would be at once destroyed; its calf they are obliged to fatten for sale, since veal is a delicacy they could not make any pretensions to; its very milk is wrought into butter and cheese for the tables of their masters. While they have no share even in their own possession but the choice of their market, 1 cannot bear to hear the rich crying out for liberty while they thus starve their fellow-creatures, and feed them up with an imaginary good while they monopolise the real benefits of Nature.

In those countries where the men are under bette subordination this excellent animal is of more general

advantage. In Germany, Poland, and Switzerland every peasant keeps two or three cows, not for the benefit of his master but of himself. The meanest of the peasants there kills one cow at least for his own table, which he salts and hangs up, and thus preserves as a delicacy all the year round. There is scarce a cottage in all those countries that is not hung round with these marks of hospitality, and which often make the owner better contented with hunger, since he has it in his power to be luxurious when he thinks proper. A piece of beef hung up there is considered as an elegant piece of furniture, which, though seldom touched, at least argues the possessor's opulence and ease. But it is very different for some years past in this country, where our lower rustics at least are utterly unable to purchase meat any part of the year; and by them even butter is considered as an article of extravagance.

The climate and pasture of Great Britain, however, is excellently adapted to this animal's moderate nature; and the verdure and fertility of our plains are perfectly suited to the manner of its feeding-for, wanting the upper fore-teeth, it loves to graze in a high rich pasture. This animal seems but little regardful of the quality of its food provided it be supplied in sufficient abundance; it makes no particular distinctions in the choice of its herbage, but indiscriminately and hastily devours the proper quantity. For this reason, in our pastures where the grass is rather high than succulent, and more flourishing than nutriciuous-the cow thrives admirably; and there is no part of Europe where the tame animal grows larger, yields more milk, and more readily fattens than with us.

Our pastures supply them with abundance, and they in return enrich the pasture; for of all animals the cow seems to give back more than it takes from the soil. The horse and the sheep are known in a course of years to impoverish the ground: the land where they have fed becomes weedy, and the vegetables coarse and unpalatable. On the contrary, the pasture where the cow has been bred acquires a finer, softer surface, and becomes every year more beautiful and even. The reason

is, that the horse, being furnished with fore-teeth in the upper jaw, nips the grass closely, and therefore only chooses that which is the most delicate and tender; the sheep also though, with respect to its teeth, formed like the cow-only bites the most succulent parts of the herbage. These animals, therefore, leave all the high weeds standing; and, while they cut the finer grass too closely, suffer the rank herbage to vegetate and overrun the pasture. But it is otherwise with the cow; as its teeth cannot come so close to the ground as those of the horse, nor so readily as those of the sheep, which are less, it is obliged to feed upon the tallest vegetables that offer; thus it eats them all down, and in time levels the surface of the pasture.

The age of the cow is known by its teeth and horns. This animal is furnished with eight cutting teeth in the lower jaw; at the age of ten months the two middlemost of these fall out, and are replaced with others that are not so white, but broader; at the age of sixteen months the two next milk-white teeth fall out also, and others come up in their room: thus, at the end of every six months the creature loses and gains, till, at the age of three years, all the cutting teeth are renewed, and then they are long, pretty white, and equal; but in proportion as the animal advances in years they become irregular and black, their inequalities become smoother, and the animal less capable of chewing its food. Thus the cow often declines from this single cause; for as it is obliged to eat a great deal to support life, and as the smoothness of the teeth makes the difficulty of chewing great, a sufficient quantity of food cannot be supplied to the stomach. Thus the poor animal sinks in the midst of plenty, and every year grows leaner and leaner, till it dies.

The horns are another, and a surer, method of deter mining this animal's age. At three years old it sheds its horns, and new ones arise in their place, which con tinue as long as it lives; at four years of age the cow has small, pointed, neat smooth horns, thickest near the head; at five the horns become larger, and are marked round with the former year's growth. Thus, while the animal continues to live the horns continue to lengthen, and every year a new ring is added at the root; so that allowing three years before their appearance, and then reckoning the number of rings, we have in both together the animal's age exactly.

As we have indisputably the best breed of horned cattle of any in Europe, so it was not without the same assiduity that we came to excel in these as in our horses. The breed of cows has been entirely improved by a foreign mixture, properly adapted to supply the imper fections of our own. Such as are purely British are far inferior in size to those in many parts of the continent; but those which we have thus improved by far excel all others. Our Lincolnshire kind derive their size from the Holstein breed; and the large hornless cattle that are bred in some parts of England came originally from Poland. We were once famous for a wild breed of these animals, but they have long since been worn out; and perhaps no kingdom in Europe can furnish so few wild animals of all kinds as our own. Cultivation and agriculture are sure to banish these wherever they are found; and every addition a country receives from Art drives away those animals that are only fitted for a state of Nature.

The

Of all quadrupeds, the cow seems most liable to alteration from its pasture. In the different parts of our own country we easily perceive the great varieties produced among these animals by the richness or poverty of the soil. In some they grow to a great bulk; and I have seen an ox sixteen hands high, which is taller than the general run of our horses. In others they appear as diminutive, being not so large as an ass. breed of the Isle of Man and most parts of Scotland is much less in general than in England or Ireland; they are different shaped also, the dewlap being much smaller, and, as the expression is, the beast has more of the ewe neck. This till some years ago was considered in cattle as a deformity, and the cow was chosen, according to Virgil's direction, with a large dewlap; however, at present it is the universal opinion that the cow wants in udder what it has in neck, and the larger the dewlap the smaller is the quantity of its milk. Our graziers now, therefore, endeavour to mix the two breeds-the large Holstein with the small northern; and from both results that fine milch breed which excels the cattle any other part of the world.

of This difference, arising from pasture, is more observ able in other countries than in our own. The cow kind is to be found in almost every part of the world large in proportion to the richness of the pasture, and small as the animal is stinted in its food. Thus Africa is remarkable for the largest and the smallest cattle of this kind; as is also India, Poland, Switzerland, and several other parts of Europe. Among the Eluth Tartars, where the pastures are remarkably rich and nourishing, the cow becomes so large that he must be a tall man who can reach the tip of its shoulder. On the contrary, in France, where the animal is stinted in its food and driven from the most flourishing pastures, it greatly degenerates.

But the differences in the size of this animal are not so remarkable as those which are found in its form, its hair, and its horns. The difference is so very extraor dinary in many of them that they have been even considered as a different kind of creature, and names have been given them as a distinct species, when in reality they are all the same. In this manner the urus and the bison have been considered, from the variety in their

make, to be distinct in their production; but they are all, in fact, the descendants of one common stock, as they have that certain mark of unity, they breed and propagate among each other. Naturalists have therefore laboured under an obvious error, when, because of the extreme bulk of the urus, or because of the hump upon the back of the bison, they assigned them different places in the creation, and separated a class of animals which was really united. It is true, the horse and the ass do not differ so much in form as the cow and the bison; nevertheless, the former are distinct animals, as their breed is marked with sterility; the latter are animals of the same kind, as their breed is fruitful, and a race of animals is produced in which the hump belonging to the bison is soon worn away. The differences, therefore, between the cow, the urus, and the bison are merely accidental. The same caprice in Nature that has given horns to some cows and denied them to others may also have given the bison a hump, or increased the bulk of the urus; it may have given the one a mane, or denied a sufficiency of hair to the other.

But before we proceed farther, it may be proper to describe these varieties which have been thus taken for distinct kinds. The urus, or wild bull, is chiefly to be met with in the province of Lithuania, and grows to a size that scarce any other animal except the elephant is found to equal. It is quite black, except a stripe mixed with white, that runs from the neck to the tail along the top of the back; the horns are short, thick, and strong; the eyes are fierce and fiery; the forehead is adorned with a kind of garland of black curled hair, and some of them are found to have beards of the same; the neck is short and strong, and the skin has an odour of musk. The female, though not so big as the male, exceeds the largest of our bulls in size; nevertheless, her udder and teats are so small that they can scarcely be perceived. Upon the whole, however, this animal resembles the tame one very exactly, except in some trifling varieties, which his state of wildness or the richness of the pastures where he is found may easily have produced.

The bison, which is another variety of the cow kind, differs from the rest in having a lump between its shoul ders. These animals are of various kinds some very large, others as diminutively little. In general, to regard this animal's fore-parts he has somewhat the look of a lion, with a long shaggy mane, and a beard under his chin; his head is little, his eyes red and fiery, with a furious look; the forehead is large, and the horns so big and so far assunder, that three men might often sit between them. On the middle of the back there grows a hunch almost as high as that of a camel, covered with hair, and which is considered as a great delicacy by those that hunt him. There is no pursuing him with safety, except in forests where there are trees large enough to hide the hunters. He is generally taken by pit-falls the inhabitants of those countries where he is found wild digging holes in the ground, and covering them over with boughs of trees and grass; then provoking the bison to pursue them, they get on the opposite side of the pitfall, while the furious animal, running head foremost, falls into the pit prepared for him, and is there quickly overcome and slain.

Besides these real distinctions in the cow kind, there have been many others made that appear to be in name only. Thus the bonasus, of which naturalists have given us long descriptions, is supposed by Klein and Buffon to be no more than another name for the bison, as the descriptions given of them by the ancients coincide. The bubalus, also, of the ancients, which some have supposed to belong to the cow kind, Buffon places among the lower class of ruminant quadrupeds, as it most resembles them in size, shape, and the figure of its horns. Of all the varieties, therefore, of the cow kind there are but two that are really distinct-namely, the cow and the buffalo; these two are separated by Nature; they

seem to bear an antipathy to each other; they avoid each other, and may be considered as much removed as the horse is from the ass or the zebra. When, therefore, we have described the varieties of the cow kind we shall pass on to the buffalo, which being a different animal requires a separate history.

There is scarce a part of the world, as was said before, in which the cow is not found in some one of its varie ties either large, like the urus, or humped, as the bison; with straight horns, or bending, inverted backwards, or turning sideways to the cheek like those of a ram; and in many countries they are found without any horns whatsoever. But to be more particular, beginning at the north, the few kine which subsist in Iceland are without horns, although of the same race originally with our own. The size of these is rather relative to the goodness of the pasture than the warmth or coldness of the climate. The Dutch frequently bring great quantities of lean cattle from Denmark, which they fatten on their own rich grounds. These are in general of a larger size than their own natural breed, and they fatten very easily. The cattle of Ukraine, where the pasture is excellent, become very fat, and are considered as one of the largest breeds in Europe. In Switzerland, where the mountains are covered with a rich nourishing herbage, which is entirely reserved for the kine, these animals grow to a very large size. On the contrary, in France, where they get no other grass but what is thought unfit for horses, they dwindle and grow lean. In some parts of Spain the cow grows to a good size; those wild bulls, however, which they pride themselves so much in combating, are a very mean, despicable little animal, and somewhat shaped like one of our cows, with nothing of that peculiar sternness of aspect for which our bulls are remarkable. In Barbary and the provinces of Africa, where the ground is dry and the pasturage short, the cows are of a very small breed, and give milk in proportion On the contrary, in Ethiopia they are of a prodi gious size. The same holds in Persia and Tartary, where in some places they are very small, and in others of an amazing stature. It is thus in almost every part of the world this animal is found to correspond in size to the quantity of its provision.

If we examine the form of these animals as they are found tame in different regions, we shall find that the breed of the urus, or those without a hump, chiefly occupies the cold and the temperate zones, and is not so much dispersed towards the south. On the contrary, the breed of the bison, or the animal with a hump, is found in all the southern parts of the world-throughout the vast continent of India-throughout Africa, from Mount Atlas to the Cape of Good Hope. In all these countries the bison seems chiefly to prevail, where they are found to have a smooth soft hair, are very nimble of foot, and in some measure supply the want of horses. The bison breed is more expert and docile than ours; many of them when they carry burdens bend their knees to take them up or let them down: they are treated, therefore, by the natives of those countries with a degree of tenderness and care equal to their utility; and the respect for them in India has degenerated even into blind adoration. But it is among the Hottentots where these animals are chiefly esteemed, as being more than commonly serviceable. They are their fellow-domestics— the companions of their pleasures and fatigues; the cow is at once the Hottentot's protector and servant, assists him in attending his flocks, and guarding them against every invader; while the sheep are grazing the faithfu backely, as this kind of cow is called, stands or grazes beside them: still, however, attentive to the looks of its master, the backely flies round the field, herds in the sheep that are straying, obliges them to keep within proper limits, and shows no mercy to robbers, or even strangers, who attempt to plunder. But it is not the plunderers of the flock alone, but even the enemies of the

nation that these backelies are taught to combat. Every army of Hottentots is furnished with a proper herd of these, which are let loose against the enemy when the occasion is most convenient. Being thus sent forward they overturn all before them; they strike every opposer down with their horns, and trample upon them with their feet; and thus often procure their masters an easy victory, even before they have attempted to strike a blow. An animal so serviceable, it may be supposed, is not without its reward. The backely lives in the same cottage with its master, and, by long habit, gains an affection for him; and in proportion as the man approaches to the brute, so the brute seems to attain even to some share of human sagacity. The Hottentot and his backely thus mutually assist each other; and when the latter happens to die, a new one is chosen to succeed him by a council of the old men of the village. The new backely is then joined with one of the veterans of his own kind, from whom he learns his art, becomes social and diligent, and is taken for life into human friendship and protection. The bisons, or cows with a hump, are found to differ very much from each other in the several parts of the world where they are found. The wild ones of this kind, as with us, are much larger than the tame. Some have horns, and some are without any; some have them depressed, and some raised in such a manner that they are used as weapons of annoyance or defence; some are extremely large, and others among them, such as the zebu or Barbary cow, are very small. They are all, liowever, equally docile and gentle when tamed, and in general furnished with a fine lustrous soft hair, more beautiful than that of our own breed; their hump is also of different sizes, in some weighing from forty to fifty pounds, in others less; it is not, however, to be considered as a part necessarily belonging to the animal; and probably it might be cut away without much injury: it resembles a gristly fat; and, as I am assured, cuts and tastes somewhat like a dressed udder. The bisons of Malabar, Abyssinia, and Madagascar are of the great kind, as the pastures there are plentiful. Those of Arabia, Petræa, and most parts of Africa are small, and of the zebu or little kind. In America, especially towards the north, the bison is well known. The American bison, however, is found to be rather less than that of the ancient continent; its hair is longer and thicker, its beard more remarkable, and its hide more lustrous and soft. There are many of them brought up tame in Carolina; however, their wild dispositions still seem to continue, for they break through all fences to get into the corn-fields, and lead the whole tame herd after them wherever they penetrate. They breed, also, with the fame kinds originally brought over from Europe, and thus produce a race peculiar to that country. From all this it appears that naturalists have given various names to animals in reality the same, and only differing in some few accidental circumstances. The wild cow and the tame, the animal belonging to Europe, and that of Asia, Africa, and America, the bonasus and the urus, the bison and the zebu, are all one and the same, propagate among each other, and in the course of a few generations the hump wears away, and scarce any vestiges of savage fierceness are found to remain. Of all animals, therefore, except man alone, the cow seems most extensively propagated. Its nature seems equally capable of the rigours of heat and cold. It is an inhabitant as well of the frozen fields of Iceland as the burning deserts of Lybia. It seems an ancient inmate in every climate, domestic and tame in those countries which have been civilised, savage and wild in the countries which are less peopled, but capable of being made useful in all able to defend itself in a state of nature ugainst the most powerful enemy of the forest; and only subordinate to man, whose force it has experienced, and whose aid it at last seems to require. However wild the carros are, which are taken from the dam in a savage

state, either in Africa or Asia they soon become humble, patient, and familiar; and man may be considered, in those countries, as almost helpless without their assistance. Other animals preserve their nature or their form with inflexible perseverance; but these, in every respect, suit themselves to the appetites and conveniences of mankind; and as their shapes are found to alter, so also does their nature; and in no animal is their seen a greater variety of kinds, and in none a more humble and pliant disposition.

THE BUFFALO.-If we should compare the shape of our common cow with that of the bison, the difference will appear very great. The shaggy mane of the latter, the beard, the curled forehead, the inverted horns, the broad breast, and the narrow hinder parts, give it the appearance rather of a lion than a cow, and fit it more for a state of war with mankind than a state of servitude." Yet, notwithstanding these appearances, both animals are found to be the same or at least so nearly allied that they breed among each other, and propagate a race, that continues the kind.

On the other hand, if we compare the buffalo with our common cow, no two animals can be more alike either in their form or their nature -both equally submissive to the yoke, both often living under the same roof and employed in the same domestic services-the make and the turn of their bodies so much alike that it requires a close attention to distinguish them; and yet, after all this, no two animals can be more distinct, or seem to have stronger antipathies to each other. Were there but one of each kind remaining, it is probable the race of both would shortly be extinct. However, such is the fixed aversion formed between these creatures, that the cow refuses to breed with the buffalo, which it nearly resembles; while it is known to propagate with the bison, to which it has, in point of form, but a distant similitude.

The buffalo is, upon the whole, by no means so beautiful a creature as the cow; his figure is more clumsy and awkward; his air is wilder; and he carries his head lower and nearer the ground; his limbs are less fleshy,' and his tail more naked of hair; his body is shorter and thicker than that of the cow kind; his legs are higher; his head smaller; his horns not so round, black, and compressed, with a bunch of curled hair hanging down between them; his skin is also harder and thicker, more black, and less furnished with hair; his flesh, which is hard and blackish, is not only disagreeable to the taste, but likewise to the smell. The milk of the female is by no means so good as that of the cow; it is, however, produced in great abundance. In the warm countries almost all their cheese is made of the milk of the buffalo; and they also supply butter in large quantities. The veal of the young buffalo is not better eating than the beef of the old. The hide of this animal seems to be the most valuable thing he furnishes. The leather made of it is well known for its thickness, softness and impenetrability. As these animals are in general larger and stronger than the cow, they are usefully employed in agriculture. They are used in drawing burdens, and sometimes in carrying them-being guided by a ring, which is thrust through their nose. Two buffaloes yoked in a waggon are said to draw more than four strong horses; as their heads and necks are naturally bent downward, they are thus better fitted for the draught, and the weight of their bodies is applied to the carriage that is to be drawn forward.

From the size and bulk of the buffalo, we may be easily led to conclude that he is a native of the warmer climates. The largest quadrupeds are generally found in the torrid zone and the buffalo is inferior in point of size only to the elephant, the rhinoceros, or the hippopotamus. The cameleopard or the camel may, indeed, be taller, but they are neither so long nor near so corpulent. Accordingly,

we find this animal wild in many parts of India; and tamed, also, wherever the natives have occasion for his services. The wild buffaloes are very dangerous animals, and are often found to gore travellers to death, and then trample them with their feet until they have entirely mangled the whole body: however, in the woods they are not so much to be feared as in the plains, because in the violence of their pursuit their large horns are apt to be entangled in the branches of the trees, which gives those who have been surprised by then time to escape the danger. There is scarce any other method of avoiding their pursuit; they run with great swiftness; they overturn a tree of moderate growth; and are such swimmers, as to cross the largest rivers without any difficulty. In this manner, like other large animals of the torrid zone, they are very fond of the water; and, in the midst of their pursuit, often plunge in in order to cool them selves. The Negroes of. Guinea and the Indians of Malabar, where buffaloes are in great abundance, take great delight in hunting and destroying them; however, they never attempt to face the buffalo openly, but, generally climbing up the tree, shoot at him from thence, and do not come down till they find they have effectually despatched him. When they are tamed, no animal can be more patient or humble; and though by no means so docile as the cow kind, yet they go through domestic drudgeries with more strength and perseverance.

Although these animals are chiefly found in the torrid zone, yet they are bred in several parts of Europe, particularly in Italy, where they make the food and the riches of the poor. The female produces but one at a time, in the same manner as the cow; but they are very different in the times of gestation-for the cow, as we know, goes but nine months, whereas the buffalo continues pregnant for twelve. They are all afraid of fire; and, perhaps, in consequence of this, have an aversion to red colours, or anything resembling the colour of flame. It is said that in those countries where they are found in plenty no person dares to dress in scarlet. In general they are inoffensive animals if undisturbed-as indeed all those which feed upon grass are found to be: but when they are wounded, or when even but fired at, nothing then can stop their fury; they turn up the ground with their fore-feet, bellow much louder and more terribly than the bull, and attack the object of their resentment with ungovernable rage. It is happy in such circumstances if the person they pursue has a wall over which to escape, or some such obstacle, otherwise they soon overtake and instantly destroy him. It is remarkable, however, that although their horns are so very formidable they in general make more use of their feet in combat, and rather tread their enemies to death than gore them,

Having thus gone through the history of these animals, it may be proper to observe that no names have been more indiscriminately used than those of the bull, the urus, the bison, and the buffalo. It therefore becomes such as would have distinct ideas of each to be careful in separating the kinds the one from the other, allowing the cow for the standard of all. The urus, whether of the large enormous kind of Lithuania or the smaller race of Spain-whether with long or short horns, or whether with or without long hair on the forehead, is everyway the same with what our common breed was before they were taken from the forest and reduced to a state of ser vitude. The bison and all its varieties, which are known by a hump between the shoulders, is also to be ranked in the same class. This animal-whether with crooked or straight horns-whether they be turned towards the cheek or totally wanting, whether it be large or diminutive-whatever be its colour or whatever the length of its hair, whether called the "bonasus" by some or the "bubalus" by others-is but a variety of the cow kind, with whom it breeds, and with whom of consequence it has the closest connection. Lastly, the buffalo, though

shaped much more like the cow, is a distinct kind by itself, and never mixes with any of the former: it goes twelve months with young, whereas the cow goes but nine-which testifies an aversion to the latter; and, though bred under the same roof or feeding in the same pasture, is always kept separate, and makes a distinct race in all parts of the world These two kinds are supposed to be the only real varieties in the cow kind, of which naturalists have given so many varieties With respect to some circumstances mentioned by travellerssuch as that of many kinds defending themselves by voiding their dung against their pursuers-this is a practice which they have in common with other timid creatures when pursued, and arises rather from fear than a desire of defence. The musky smell, also, by which some of them have been distinguished, is found common to many of these kinds in a state of nature, and does not properly make the characteristic marks of any. The particular kind of noise, also, which some of them are known to make, which rather resembles grunting than bellowing or lowing, is but a savage variety which many wild animals have, and which they lose when brought into a state of tameness. For these reasons, Mr. Buffon (whom I have followed in this description) is of opinion that the zebu or little African cow, and the grunting or Siberian cow, are but different races of the bison-as the shape of the horns or the length of the hair are never properly characteristic marks of any animal, but are found to vary with climate, food, and cultivation.

In this manner the number of animals of the cow kind, which naturalists have extended to eight or ten sorts, are reduced to two; and as the utmost deference is paid to the opinion of Mr. Buffon in this particular, I have taken him for my guide. Nevertheless, there is an animal of the cow kind which neither he nor any other naturalist that I know of has hitherto described, yet which makes a very distinct class, and may be added as a third species.

This animal was shown some years ago in London, and seemed to unite many of the characteristics of the cow and the hog-having the head, the horns, and the tail of the former, with the bristles, the colour, and the grunting of the latter. It was about the size of an ass, but broader and thicker-the colour resembling that of a hog, and the hair bristly as in that animal. The hair upon the body was thin, as in the hog; and a row of bristles ran along the spine, rather shorter and softer than in the hog kind. The head was rather larger than that of a cow; the teeth entirely resembled those of that animal, and the tongue was rough in like manner. It fed upon hay, and consequently its internal conforma tion must have resembled that of the cow kind more than the hog, whose food is always chosen of a kind more succulent. The eyes were placed in the head as with the cow, and were much of the same colour; the horns were black and flattish, but bent rather backwards towards the neck, as in the goat kind; the neck was short and thick, and the back rather rising in the middle; it was cloven footed, like the cow, without those hinder claws that are found in the hog kinds. But the greatest variety of all in this extraordinary creature, which was a female, was, that it had but two teats, and consequently in that respect resembled neither of the kinds to which in other circumstances it bore so strong a similitude. Whether this animal was a distinct kind or a monster I will not pretend to say: it was shown under the name of the bonasus; and it was said by the person who showed it to have come from India. But no credit is to be given to interested ignorance; the person only wanted to make the animal appear as extraordinary as possible; and, I believe, would scarcely scruple a lie or two to increase that wonder in us by which he found the means of living.