[Footnote 136:  The working ox was respected by the ancient Romans as a fellow labourer.  Valerius Maximus (VIII, 8 ad fin.) cites a case of a Roman citizen who was put to death, because, to satisfy the craving of one of his children for beef to eat, he slew an ox from the plough.  Ovid puts this sentiment in the mouth of Pythagoras, when he agrees that pigs and goats are fit subjects for sacrifice, but protests against such use of sheep and oxen. (Metamor.  XV, 139.)

  “Quid meruere boves, animal sine fraude dolisque
  Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores? 
  Immemor est demum, nee frugum manere dignus
  Qui potuit curvi demto modo pondere arati
  Ruricolam mactare suum:  qui trita labore
  Ilia quibus toties durum renovaverat arvum
  Tot dederse messes, percussit colla securi.”]

[Footnote 137:  The learned commentators have been able to discover nothing about either this Plautius or this Hirrius, but it appears that Archelaus wrote a book under the title Bugonia, of which nothing survives.  It may be conjectured, however, on the analogy of Samson’s riddle to the Philistines, “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness,” (Judges, XIV, 14), that Plautius meant to imply that some good might be the consequence of the evil Hirrius had done:  and that Vaccius cited the allusion to suggest to Varro that, while he might know nothing much about cattle, his attempt to deal with the subject might provoke some useful discussion.]

[Footnote 138:  Darwin, Animals and Plants, II, 20, cites this passage and says that “at the present day the natives of Java some times drive their cattle into the forests to cross with the wild Banteng.”  The crossing of wild blood on domestic animals is not, however, always successful.  A recent visitor to the German agricultural experiment station at Halle describes “a curious hairy beast with great horns, a wild look in his eye, a white streak down his back and a bumpy forehead, which had in it blood from cattle which had lived on the plains of Thibet, which had grazed on the lowland pastures of Holland, which had roamed the forests of northeast India and of the Malay Peninsular, and had wandered through the forests of Germany.  We Americans had sympathy for this beast.  He was some thing like ourselves, with the blood of many different races flowing through his veins.”]

[Footnote 139:  Pliny (VIII, 66) cites the fact that the Scythians always preferred mares to stallions for war, and gives an ingenious reason for the preference.  Aristotle (H.A. VI, 22) says that the Scythians rode their pregnant mares until the very last, saying that the exercise rendered parturition more easy.  Every breeder of heavy draft horses has seen a mare taken from the plough and have her foal in the field, with no detriment to either:  and the story of the mare Keheilet Ajuz, who founded the best of the