I also told him of the cows of a distant country where I had
lived, that had the maternal instinct so strong that they
refused to yield their milk when deprived of their young.
They "held it back," as the saying is, and were in a sullen
rage, and in a few days their fountains dried up, and there
was no more milk until calving-time came round once more.
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.
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