To the hollow-horned family belong our most useful domestic animals, and those earliest associated with man. The cow family affords us beef, our principal meat food, also butter, cheese, and milk; while the hides furnish our chief supply of leather. The bones are used for making buttons, combs, knife-handles; the hair is used in plaster; glue and gelatine and calves’ foot jelly are made from the hoofs. Oxen are largely used for draught purposes. What, then, should we do without the bovine race? The sheep was no doubt the first domesticated animal; its gentle nature, and the ease with which it can be reared, made it an early associate with the homes of men; its wool furnishes probably our chief clothing supply; its flesh is a favorite food; many nations drink its milk, from which they make also cheese and butter. Thus we have in the sheep an animal indispensable to our civilization. The goat is a third hollow-horn, the flesh and milk of which are much used in many countries, while the goat’s long and silky hair is in demand for woven fabrics. Finally among the hollow-horns we find the famous animals of the antelope family, the beautiful, timid gazelle, the fleet chamois, the fierce, untamable gnu, the graceful ibex. If we had time to describe all these, we should find before us some of the most charming creatures in the world. They live in high mountain districts, and the Swiss is never more happy than when he pursues the chamois over the steep crests and among the crags of his native land. The largest and most untamable of the hollow-horns is that cousin of our patient, useful ox, the bison, or buffalo,[92] an animal rapidly becoming extinct through cruel and wanton slaughter. While few of us have seen the bison himself, his shaggy pelt is well known in the buffalo robes of our sleighs and carriages, and in the heavy overcoats made for northern travel. Next to the elephant and the rhinoceros, the bison is the largest of land-mammals. If we lived in Arabia instead of America, we should set beside the sheep, as the special ally of men, the camel. We have all seen this creature in menageries and zoological gardens,--a tall, awkward beast, with long legs, a shambling gait, one or two humps on its oddly shapen back, a small head, the upper lip split in the centre, a long neck, small ears, a dusty, shaggy coat, and a demeanor of patient endurance. Buffon says that “the camel is the chief treasure of the East.”