Collier's New Encyclopedia

A complete general encyclopedia of 1921 — the world as it was understood just after the Great War, from Aachen to Zwingli, across twelve volumes and six thousand pages.

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Cow

the female of the bovine species called the ox (Bos taurus), of which the bull is the male. Like other domestic animals it has run into numerous varieties, and its primitive uniformity has given rise to manifold diversity. Nor is it in color alone that it has alterated. It has done so in form, besides which there are horned and hornless oxen. The Darwinian principle of natural selection with the survival of the fittest has adapted cattle of different sizes and qualities to different parts of the country; little, active cattle, thriving on the scanty herbage found high up the mountainside, and large, heavy, slow-going cattle of luxurious proclivities falling off unless they are allowed to revel amid the rank vegetation of river sides and meadows. The latter furnish the greatest quantity of milk. See DAIRY.

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