If, contrary to custom, I had acted otherwise, and had made the calculation for the animal on the hoof, the figures given by me would present a great difference, which would increase according to the amount of fat, sometimes to double the weight. The discovery which I have made of the value of the escutcheon is designated by the contrary direction of the hair, and which had escaped the attention of every one, even those most interested in gaining the knowledge of it. It is necessary also to avow the effect produced by the change of direction of the hair is not glaring on the animal. It is merely a difference of luster, and the gloss on the surface of the escutcheon and the part of the skin surrounding it. The hair of the escutcheon is finer, shorter, more furry, and more silky. Its appearance, at the first glance, makes one think this part of the animal has been shaved. Compared with the ordinary hair, the skin of the udder appears to be more designed to be quicker seen on the part where appears the escutcheon. All animals of the bovine species, without excepting even wild animals, are marked with an escutcheon, large, small, or medium, regular or irregular. Their characteristic sign is transmitted with the generating germ. I have not thought it necessary to say much on that portion of the escutcheon which extends on the stomach of the beast towards the navel. This addition has been thought useless. Enough is shown of the escutcheon when she is standing. In order to see well the escutcheons with all the fullness which my sketches give them, it must be supposed that the udder of each cow is seen at its greatest plenitude of milk, such as would separate the hind legs to the greatest extent. In this way the escutcheon is seen as if the entire skin of the animal was placed flat, or as if the envelope of the milk bearing apparatus formed a plain surface, on which are drawn the elevations, the depressions, and all that is not visible to the eye, without the aid of hands or of movement of the cow, both that which is hidden at the further side and in the folds of the udder and of the thighs of the animal on foot. In order to examine and to distinguish perfectly the escutcheon, one should place himself behind the animal and make it advance some steps, in such manner that the movements which it makes in walking should show, one after another, the parts which one needs to see. One can also, in passing the nails over the space occupied by the escutcheon and leading the hand downward from above, in a manner contrary to the rising hair, and ruffling it, recognize without difficulty its form and its extent.