[Three Hundred Animals Contents]
IS fattened, after the labours of his youth are over, to procure us an excellent food in his flesh. As he seldom fights, being of a gentle nature, his horns grow at a great length and bend out laterally according to the kind to which he belongs. he has eight cutting teeth in the lower jaw and none in the upper; a wonderful contrivance which the whole species received from nature to nip the grass in the meadow. All animals of the Cow kind ruminate, and therefore are provided with three sorts of paunch or stomach; the honours aforesaid, paid to the Bull for his agricultural services, really belong to the Ox, who draws the plough and cart with the greatest steadiness and perseverance. The animal represented above is of the Herefordshire breed. The Bull, the Ox, and the Cow feed only upon herbage; and the meekness of the two last is such that a child is often left with the care of a whole drove of them. Speaking of a herd drinking, the poet of the Seasons says, with his usual elegance:
— in the middle droops
The strong laborious ox, of honest front,
Which incompos’d he shakes, and from his sides
The troublesome insects lashes with his tail,
Returning still.
——————————————————–THOMSON’S SUMMER.
