He Replied That Cows Of That Temper Were Not Unknown In South Devon.

Very proudly he pointed to one of the small herd that followed us as an example.

In most cases, he said, the calf was left from two or three days to a week, or longer, with the mother to get strong, and then taken away. This plan could not be always followed; some cows were so greatly distressed at losing the young they had once suckled that precautions had to be taken and the calf smuggled away as quietly as possible when dropped - if possible before the mother had seen it. Then there were the extreme cases in which the cow refused to be cheated. She knew that a calf had been born; she had felt it within her, and had suffered pangs in bringing it forth; if it appeared not on the grass or straw at her side then it must have been snatched away by the human creatures that hovered about her, like crows and ravens round a ewe in travail on some lonely mountain side.

That was the character of the cow he had pointed out; even when she had not seen the calf of which she had been deprived she made so great an outcry and was thrown into such a rage and fever, refusing to be milked that, finally, to save her, it was thought necessary to give her back the calf. Now, he concluded, it was not attempted to take it away:

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