y in the
case of newcomers was established "mesmerically" by a glance--or how?
The eye, we were assured, had a great deal to do with it. The stranger
cow _read_ it, and trembled. But, sometimes, there was a contest; and a
cow-fight, with such fresh strong creatures as these--all used to their
full liberty, and able to run or leap well, was a serious affair. If no
keeper was at hand to separate them, and the fight got serious, so that
one of them fell wounded, it was a chance but the whole herd would
surround the fallen cow, and kill her. This was not out of wickedness,
but something in the whole affair that put them beside themselves, and
they couldn't bear the horrid sight, and so tried to get rid of their
feelings, as well as the unfortunate object, by this wild violence. The
effect was the same if the herd did not witness the fight, but came
suddenly to the discovery of blood that had been spilled. They would
stare at it, and glare at it, and snuff down at it, and sniff up at it,
and prowl round it--and get more and more excited, till, at last, the
whole herd would begin to rush about the field bellowing and mad, and
make nothing at last of leaping clean over hedges, fences, and
five-barred gates. But, strange to say--if the blood they found had not
been spilt by violence, but only from some cause which the "horned
beauties" understood, such as a sister or aunt having been bled by the
doctor--then no effect of the sort occurred. They took no notice of it.

We found that besides beauty, cows possessed some imagination, and were,
moreover, very susceptible. The above excitement and mad panic sometimes
occurs as the effect of other causes.

Once some boys brought a great kite into the field, with a pantomime
face painted upon it; and directly this began to rise over the field,
and the cows looked up at it, and saw the great glass eyes of the face
looking down at them--then, oh! oh! what a bellowing! and away they
rushed over each other, quite frantic. On another occasion, some
experimental gentlemen of science, brought a fire-balloon near the
pasturage one night after dark. It rose. Up started all the cows in a
panic, and round and round they rushed, till, finally, the whole herd
made a charge at one of the high fences--tore down and overleaped every
thing--burst into the lanes--and made their way into the high-road, and
seemed to intend to leave their owners for some state of existence where
fire-balloons and horrid m