first by cold) are protected by strong hoofs of a horny substance.

The tail too is guarded with long bushy hair, that protects it in both extremes of weather; during the summer it serves, by its pliancy and agility, to brush off the swarms of insects which are perpetually attempting either to sting them, or to deposit their eggs in the rectum; the same length of hair contributes to guard them from the cold in winter. But we, by the absurd and cruel custom of docking, a practice peculiar to our country, deprive these animals of both advantages: in the last war our cavalry suffered so much on that account, that we now seem sensible of the error, and if we may judge from some recent orders in respect to that branch of the service, it will for the future be corrected.

Thus is the horse provided against the two greatest evils he is subject to from the seasons: his natural diseases are few: but our ill usage, or neglect, or, which is very frequent, our over care of him, bring on a numerous train, which are often fatal. Among the distempers he is naturally Subject to, are the worms, the bots, and the stone: the species of worms that infect him are the lumbrici, and ascarides; both these resemble those found in human bodies, only larger: the bots are the eruca, or caterpillars of the oestrus, or gadfly these are found both in the rectum, and in the stomach, and when in the latter bring on convulsions, that often terminate in death.

The stone is a disease the horse is not frequently subject to; yet we have seen two examples of it; the one in a horse near High Wycombe, that voided sixteen calculi, each of an inch and a half diame ter; the other was of a stone taken out of the bladder of a horse, and deposited in the cabinet of the late Dr. Mead; weighing eleven ounces. These stones are formed of several crusts, each very smooth and glossy; their form triangular; but their edges rounded, as if by collision against each other.

The all-wise Creator hath finely limited the several services of domestic animals towards the human race; and ordered that the parts of such, which in their lives have been the most useful, should after death contribute the least to our benefit. The chief use that the exuvia of the horse can be applied to, is for collars, traces, and other parts of the harness; and thus,

even after death, he preserves some analogy with his former employ. The hair of the mane is of use in making wigs; of the tail in making the bottoms of chairs, floor-cloths, and cords; and to the angler in making lines.

§ 2. The Ox.

The climate of Great Britain is above all others productive of the greatest variety and abundance of wholesome vegetables, which, to crown our happiness, are almost equally diffused through all its parts: this general fertility is owing to those clouded skies, which foreigners mistakenly urge as a reproach on our country; but let us cheerfully endure a temporary gloom, which clothes not only our meadows but our hills with the richest verdure. To this we owe the number, variety, and excellence of our cattle, the richness of our dairies, and innumerable other advantages. Cæsar (the earliest writer who describes this island of Great Britain) speaks of the number of our cattle, and adds that we neglected tillage, but lived on milk and flesh. Strabo takes notice of our plenty of milk, but says we were ignorant of the art of making cheese. Mela informs us, that the wealth of the Britons consisted in cattle: and in his account of Ireland, reports that such was the richness of the pastures in that kingdom, that the cattle would even burst if they were suffered to feed on them long at a time.

This preference of pasturage to tillage was delivered down from our British ancestors to much later times; and continued equally prevalent during the whole period of our feodal government; the chieftain, whose power and safety depended on the promptness of his vassals to execute his commands, found it his interest to encourage those employments that favoured that disposition; that vassal, who made it his glory to fly at the first call to the standard of his chieftain, was sure to prefer that employ, which might be transacted by his family with equal success during his absence. Tillage would require an attendance incompatible with the services he owed the baron, while the former occupation not only gave leisure for those duties, but furnished the hospitable board of his lord with ample provision, of which the vassal was equal partaker. The reliques of the larder of the elder Spencer are evident proofs of the plenty of cattle in his days; for after his winter provisi

may have been supposed to have been mostly consumed, there were found, so late as the month of May in salt, the carcases of not fewer than 80 beeves, 600 bacons, and 600 muttons. The accounts of the several great feasts in after times, afford amazing instances of the quantity of cattle that were consumed in them. This was owing partly to the continued at tachment of the people to grazing; partly to the preference that the English at all times gave to animal food. The quantity of cattle that appear from the latest calculation to have been consumed in our metropolis, is a sufficient argument of the vast plenty of these times; particularly when we consider the great advancement of tillage and the numberless variety of provisions unknown to past ages, that are now introduced into these kingdoms from all parts of the world.

Our breed of horned cattle has in general been so much improved by a foreign mixture, that it is difficult to point out the original kind of these islands. Those which may be supposed to have been purely British, are far inferior in size to those on the northern part of the European continent; the cattle of the islands of Scotland are exceeding small and many of them, males as well as females, are hornless: the Welsh runts are much larger; the black cattle of Cornwall are of the same size with the last. The large species that is now cultivated through most parts of Great Britain, are cither entirely of foreign extraction, or our own improved by a cross with the foreign kind. The Lincolnshire kind derive their size from the Holstein breed, and the large hornless cattle that are bred in some parts of England, come originally from Poland. About two hundred and fifty years ago there was found in Scotland a wild race of cattle; which were of a pure white colour and had (if we may credit Boethius) manes like lions. I cannot but give credit to the relation; having seen in the woods of Drumlanrig in North Britain, and in the park belonging to Chillingham castle in Northumberland, herds of cattle probably derived from the savage breed. They have lost their manes; but retain their colour and fierceness: they were of a middle size, long legged, and had black muzzles and ears: their horns fine, and with a bold and elegant bend. The keeper of those at Chillingham said that the weight of the ox was 38 stones: of the cow 28: that their hides were more esteemeed by the

tanners than those of the tame; and they would give sixpence per stone more for them. These cattle were wild as any deer: on being approached would instantly take to flight and gallop away at full speed: never mix, with the tame species; nor come near the house unless constrained by hunger in very severe weather. When it is necessary to kill any they are always shot; if the keeper only wounds the beast, he must take care to keep behind some tree, or his life would be in danger from the furious attacks of the animal; which will ncver desist till a period is put to its life.

Fitz

Frequent mention is made of our savage cattle by historians. One relates that Robert Bruce was (in chasing these animals) preserved from the rage of a wild bull by the intrepidity of one of his courtiers, from which he and his lineage acquired the name of Turn-bull. Stephen names these animals (Uri Sylvestres) among those that harboured in the great forest that in his time lay adjacent to London. Another enumerates, among the provisions at the great feast of Nevil archbishop of York, six wild bulls; and Sibbald assures us, that in his days a wild and white species was found in the mountains of Scotland, but agreeing in form I believe these to with the common sort. have been the Bisontes jubati of Pliny, found then in Germany, and might have been common to the continent and our islands; the loss of their savage vigour by confinement might occasion some change in the external appearance, as is frequent with wild animals deprived of liberty; and to that we may ascribe their loss of mane. The Urus of the Hercynian forest de scribed by Cæsar, book VI. was of this kind, the same which is called by the modern Germans, Aurochs,i.c. Bos Sylvestris.

The ox is the only horned animal in these islands that will apply his strength to the service of mankind. It is now ge nerally allowed that in many cases oxen are more profitable in the draught than horses; their food, harness, and shoes being cheaper, and should they be lamed or grow old, an old working beast will be as good meat, and fatten as well as a young one.

There is scarce any part of this animal without its use. The blood, fat, marrow, hide, hair, horns, hoofs, milk, cream, butter, cheese, whey, urine, liver, gall, spleen, bones, and dung, have each ther particu lar use in manufactures, commerce and medicine.

The

nufacture at home. That valuable branch of business lay for a considerable time in foreign hands; and we were obliged to import the cloth manufactured from our own materials. There seems, indeed, to have been many unavailing efforts made by our monarchs to preserve both the wool and the manufacture of it among ourselves: Henry the IId, by a patent granted to the weavers in London, directed that if any cloth was found made of a mixture of Spanish wool, it should be burnt by the mayor; yet so little did the weaving business advance, that Edward the IIId was obliged to permit the importation of foreign cloth in the beginning of his reign; but soon after, by encouraging foreign artificers to settle in England, and instruct the natives in their trade, the manufacture increased so greatly as to enable him to prohibit the wear of foreign cloth. Yet, to shew the uncommercial genius of the people, the effects of this prohibition were checked by another law, as prejudicial to trade as the former was salutary; this was an act of the same reign, against exporting woollen goods manufactured at home, under heavy penalties; while the exporta tion of wool was not only allowed but encouraged. This oversight was not soon rectified, for it appears that, on the alliance that Edward the IVth made with the king of Arragon, he presented the latter with some ewes and rams of the Coteswold kind, which is a proof of their excellency, since they were thought acceptable to a monarch, whose dominions were so noted for the fineness of their fleeces.

In the first year of Richard the IIId, and in the two succeeding reigns, our woollen manufactures received some improvements; but the grand rise of all its prosperity is to be dated from the reign of queen Elisabeth, when the tyranny of the duke of Alva in the Netherlands drove numbers of artificers for refuge into this country, who were the founders of that immense manufacture we carry on at present. We have strong inducements to be more particular on the modern state of our woollen manufactures; but we de sist, from a fear of digressing too far; our inquiries must be limited to points that have a more immediate reference to the study of Zoology.

No country is better supplied with materials and those adapted to every species of the clothing business than Great Bri

Wales yields but a coarse wool; yet it is of more extensive use than the finest Segovian fleeces; for rich and poor, age and youth, health and infirmities, all confess the universal benefit of the flannel manufacture.

The Sheep of Ireland vary like those of Great Britain. Those of the south and east being large, and their flesh rank. Those of the north and mountainous parts, small and their flesh sweet. The fleeces in the same manner differ in degrees of value.

Scotland breeds a small kind, and their fleeces are coarse. Sibbald (after Boethius) speaks of a breed in the isle of Rona, covered with blue wool; of another kind in the isle of Hirta, larger than the biggest he-goat, with tails hanging almost to the ground, and horns as thick, and longer than those of an ox. He mentions another kind, which is cloathed with a mixture of wool and hair; and a fourth species whose flesh and fleeces are yellow, and their teeth of the colour of gold; but the truth of these relations ought to be enquired into, as no other writer has mentioned them, except the credulous Boethius. Yet the last particular is not to be rejected; for not withstanding I cannot instance the teeth of sheep, yet I saw in the summer of 1772,

at

at Athol-house, the jaws of an ox, with teeth thickly incrusted wit a gold-coloured pyrites; and the same might have happened to those of sheep had they fed in the same grounds, which were in the valley beneath the house.

Besides the fleece, there is scarce any part of this animal but what is useful to mankind. The flesh is a delicate and wholesome food. The skin dressed, forms different parts of our apparel: and is used for covers of books. The entrails, properly prepared and twisted, serve for strings for various musical instruments. The bones calcined (like other bones in general) form materials for tests for the refiner. The milk is thicker than that of cows, and consequently yields a greater quantity of butter and cheese: and in some places is so rich, that it will not produce the cheese without a mixture of water to make it part from the whey. The dung is a remarkable rich manure; insomuch that the folding of sheep has become too useful a branch of husbandry for the farmer to neglect. To conclude, whether we consider the advantages that result from this animal to individuals in particular, or to these kingdoms in general, we may with Columella consider this in one sense as the first of the domestic animals. Post majores quadrupedes ovilli pecoris secunda ratio est ; quæ prima sit si ad utilitatis magnitudinem referas. Nam ad præcique contra frigoris riolentiam protegit, corporibusque nostris liberaliora præbet velamina; et etiam elegantiam mensas jucundis et numerosis dapibus exornat.

The sheep, as to its nature, is a most innocent, mild, and simple animal; and, conscious of its own defenceless state, remarkably timid; if attacked when attended by its lamb, it will make some shew of defence, by stamping with its feet, and pushing with its head it is a gregarious animal, is fond of any jingling noise, for which reason the leader of the flock has in many places a bell hung round his neck, which the others will constantly follow it is subject to many diseases: some arise from insects which

deposit their eggs in different parts of the animal; others are caused by their being kept in wet pastures; for as the sheep requires but little drink, it is naturally fond of a dry soil. The dropsy, vertigo, (the pendro of the Welsh) the phthisic, jaundice, and worms in the liver, annually make great havoc among our flocks: for the first disease the shepherd finds a remedy by turning the infected into fields of broom; which plant has been also found to be very efficacious in the same disorder among the human species.

The sheep is also infested by different sorts of insects: like the horse it has its peculiar estrus or gadfly, which deposits its eggs above the nose in the fronted sinuses; when those turn into maggots they become excessive painful, and cause those violent agitations that we so often see the animal in. The French shepherds make a common practice of easing the sheep, by trepanning and taking out the maggot; this practice is sometimes used by the English shepherds, but not always with the same success: besides these insects, the sheep is troubled with a kind of tick and louse, which magpies and starlings contribute to ease it of, by lighting on its back, and picking the insects off.