throughout the year in which these animals are amply or agreeably fed. This is the sole cause which renders them weak, poor, and small; for, in Spain, and in some cantons of the provinces of France, where there is good pasture, and solely reserved for the oxen, they are much stronger and larger. In Barbary, and most part of Africa, where the ground is dry, and the pasture poor, the oxen are still smaller, the cows give much less milk than those in France, and the greatest part of them lose their milk when their calves are taken from them. They are the same in some parts of Persia, of Lower Ethiopia, and in Great Tartary, while in the same countries, and at very small distances, as in Calmuck Tartary, in Upper Ethiopia, and in Abyssinia, the oxen are a prodigious size. This difference, therefore, depends more on the plenty of their food than on the temperature of the climate. In the northern, temperate, and warm regions, we equally find, at very small distances, small or large oxen, according to the quantity and quality of the pasture, they are fed upon. The breed of aurochs, or ox without a hunch, inhabits the cold and temperate zones, and is not much dispersed in the southern countries. On the contrary the breed of the bison, or hunched ox, occupies all the southern provinces. In the whole continent of India, in the eastern and southern islands of all Africa, from Mount Atlas to the Cape of Good Hope, we find no others but hunched oxen; it even appears, that this breed, which has prevailed in all the warm countries, has many advantages over the others; for, like the bison, of which they are the issue, their hair is softer, and more glossy than our oxen, who, like the auroch, are furnished but with little hair, of a harsh nature. These hunched oxen are also swifter, and more proper to supply the place of the horse[D]; at the same time they are less clumsy, stupid, and indolent than our oxen. They are more tractable, and sensible, have more of that intelligence which renders them useful; they are also treated with more care than our finest horses. The regard the Indians have for these animals is so great that it has degenerated into superstition, the last mark of blind respect. The ox, as the most useful animal, has appeared to them the most worthy of being revered; and they have made an idol of the object of their veneration, a kind of beneficent and powerful divinity; for we are desirous of rendering all we respect, great, and capable of doing much good, or much harm. [D] At Surat, Persia, and in all the provinces of India, they are used for carrying burdens and drawing a kind of coaches, and by constant habit they acquire such a dexterity that few animals can outrun them. _See Voyages della Valle, Owington, Mandelslo, Flacourt, Grosse, &c._