o 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: twice
a day she was allowed to have it with her and suckle it, and she was a
very happy animal.

I was glad to think that there was at least one completely happy cow in
Devonshire.

After leaving the cowkeeper I had that feeling of revulsion very
strongly which all who know and love cows occasionally experience at
the very thought of beef. I was for the moment more than tolerant of
vegetarianism, and devoutly hoped that for many days to come I should
not be sickened with the sight of a sirloin on some hateful board, cold,
or smoking hot, bleeding its red juices into the dish when gashed with a
knife, as if undergoing a second death. We do not eat negroes, although
their pigmented skins, flat feet, and woolly heads proclaim them a
different species; even monkey's flesh is abhorrent to us, merely
because we fancy that that creature in its ugliness resembles some
old men and some women and children that we know. But the gentle
large-brained social cow that caresses our hands and faces with
her rough blue tongue, and is more like man's sister than any other
non-human being--the majestic, beautiful creature with the juno eyes,
sweeter of breath than the rosiest virgin--we slaughter and feed on her
flesh--monsters and cannibals that we are!

But though cannibals, it is very pleasant to find that many cowmen
love their cows. Walking one afternoon by a high unkept hedge near
Southampton Water, I heard loud shouts at intervals issuing from a
point some distance ahead, and on arriving at the s