Light Occupations of the Cow.
I watched lately a little act of this drama among a herd of cows on the Stray at Harrogate during a hot day. There were 105 of them and this was what they were doing all day—some were browsing with their muzzles close to the ground, their necks making a considerable angle with the line of their trunks, others standing stock still with their heads raised at a level with the body, gazing vacantly into space, others lying on the grass more advanced in the strenuous work of their day, ruminating with head level, also gazing at nothing in particular, with their bodies gently rolled to one side, their fore legs doubled straight under them and their hind legs planted to one or other side, and a fourth group still nearer the end of the cycle of work, lying with their chins resting on the ground. When this cycle was completed the stages would again be begun, continued and ended. They were flapping their wide ears in various directions, and twitching endlessly the skin of the flanks and dewlaps with their fly shakers. This large group afforded, if one may so describe it, a cinematographic picture of the lives of countless generations of this conservative animal. Conservative as she is, I doubt not that in the long-past ages her quiet though persistent habits had once a battle to wage for the production of even these mild innovations that I have described. These present fashions must have been well developed three thousand five hundred years ago and have adorned that “calf, tender and good,” which Abraham in the plains of Mamre fetched for the midday meal of his visitors.