The ox : its external and internal structures / by A. Seyfferth ; revised and edited by G.T. Brown.

  • Seyfferth, A.
Date:
[between 1900 and 1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ox : its external and internal structures / by A. Seyfferth ; revised and edited by G.T. Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tribes, and families are named after geographical or political divisions; often enough they are called after quite small breeding places, after districts, valleys, ranges—even after hamlets. The specification of each separate race, breed, and family would be too discursive. Still it may be noted that a classification of the different species, tribes, and breeds, according to their salient peculiarities, referring to milk-producing, to the meat and fat pro- duction, and capacity for work, will be touched upon. For the fairly large and small breeder, this standard is less applicable; he must strive to unite all these capacities as much as possible. In Europe, half-wild cattle are still found in parks in England and Scotland, as well as in Spain. In Lithuania, in the primeval forests of Bralowitch, the still savage Ure ox is occasionally met with, the size of which has decreased considerably in the course of centuries. It is still, however, the largest mammal of the European continent; in a general way, it is only found in the Caucasus. Outside the European cattle, mention may be made of—the Indian ox (Bos Indicus), also the African ox (Bos Africanus). These are almost the only species of domestic cattle in Asia and Africa. The animals have fleshy humps, which distinguish them from our cattle, but these humps are disappearing through crossing with ours. They exhibit more intelligence and docility than our ox, and combine greater draught and carrying power, with rapidity of movement. The Hottentots use them in times both of peace and war for riding. They are grey or white in colour. Besides these, the Yak or grunting ox (Bos Gruniens), which, tamed in Northern China and Mongolia, is kept as a useful domestic animal, but is also met with in a savage state in herds, numbering as much as a thousand head of cattle. The Gyall or sylhetanish ox (Bos Frontalis) is found wild in the East Indies ; it can be tamed, and in size and form resembles our domestic ox, and on that account different experts have classed it as of the same parentage. The Bison (Bos Americanus) is to North American oxen what the Ure ox (Aurochs) is in Europe. Before the age of man, millions of these animals inhabited the American continent, but have now almost entirely disappeared. The greed of men has annihilated them. The Gaur (Bos Gaurus) is much like the Gyall, is met with wild in India, and is also called the Indian Bison. The Bantang (Bos Bantang) of the Malays is an ox living in its wild state in Java, Borneo, and Sumatra, as well as on the mainland of the Malay Peninsula. The Arni (Bos Ami), an animal with rugged skin and a few black hairs, has no dew- lap, or hardly any; it came originally from India, but is now distri- buted in Asia, Africa (Egypt), Turkey, Italy, and Hungary as a domestic animal. It is also still found in a savage state in India. The African Buffalo, the Kaffir Buffalo (Bos Caffer), and the Red Ox (Bos Pumillus), live in large herds, quite wild, the first named in the eastern half of Africa and in some parts of Cape Colony, the latter more in Western Africa. The Musk ox (Bos Moschatus), which is found all over the waste lands or deserts of the North American con- tinent, and in parts of Greenland. In the British Isles certain breeds are now and have for a long time been recognised. For example, Short-horns, Herefords, Devons, Sussex, Norfolk (polled), Long-horns, Welsh, Aberdeen, Angus (polled), West Highland, Galloway, Ayrshire, Jersey and Guernsey, and among Irish breeds, Kerry and Dexters. Colour varies extensively in the different breeds : black, white, red, brown, fawn, roan, and combinations of white with other colours. DENTITION AND JUDGING THE AGE OF CATTLE BY THEIR TEETH. The adult ox has eight incisors, chisel-shape, in the front of the lower jaw, none in the upper jaw, which is provided with a dense fibrous pad. Molars, or grinding teeth, are present in both jaws—six on each side, top and bottom. At birth the calf has usually the full complement of temporary in- cisors, milk teeth distinctly visible under the gum, with the edges of some of them pricking through, as seen in Fig. 1.