The intelligence of the oxen.

Youatt’s book on cattle has two distinct parts, Breeding and Diseases, but he walks along a lot of side tracks. The reason is that he has quite a number of observations and anecdotes in store, and he likes to tell them. He has made observations of the cattle market in London and the local dairy industry there and where in his book should he give them a place? He has chosen to put them in a chapter about the shorthorn breeds, in the paragraphs dealing with the county of Middlesex, which contains London.

Another interesting description is that of the behaviour of the ox; Youatt put it in part 2, The Anatomical Structure and Diseases of Cattle, the first chapter of which is The Structure and Diseases of the Head of the Ox. Not a single detail of the head is forgotten, ears, eyes, sinuses, skin and bones, all organs and tissues play a role in his treatise. When he arrives at the brain he starts with an introductory paragraph of the subject which he closes with the following sentence: “Shall we somewhat enliven a dry part of our work by adding one or two additional anecdotes to those already related?” (p.285).

Then follows the paragraph “The intelligence of the oxen”, containing four anecdotes and a conclusion. The anecdotes illustrate, respectively, maternal affections of cows, two times the attachment of oxen to their keepers, and the reasoning faculty in the ox. The latter subject is the story (from “a gentleman near Laggan, in Scotland”) of a fat and drowsy boy who was kept to watch the cattle, a bull grazing with cows in open unfenced meadows, to prevent them tresspassing on the neighbouring fields and destroy the corn. The boy was often found asleep, for which he was then punished. “Warned by this, he kept a long switch, and revenged himself upon them [the cattle] with an unsparing hand, if they exceeded their boundary”. Apparently the bull became conditioned by this treatment because he used to strike the cows with his forehead (he had no horns) whenever they crossed this boundary and place himself before the cows in a threatening attitide if they approached it. “At length, his honesty and vigilance became so obvious that the boy was employed in weeding and other business, without fear of their misbehaviour in his absence”.

Youatt finished the paragraph with a philosophical comparison between the relative brain size and the intelligence of the ox, the horse and the dog, concluding that the ox occupies an inferior rank. But “he occasionally displays the germ of every social affection; and the knowledge of this should give us a kindlier feeling towards him, and protect him from many an abuse”.

About which Youatt has a lot to say elsewhere in his book