Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Certain marks on the udder and perineum of the cow, consisting of spots and lines on which the hair grows upward (the hair on other parts growing downward), supposed to indicate, by their form, size, and direction, the characters of the cow as regards both the quantity and the quality of her milk.
Etymologies
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Examples
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Most frequently, however, the hair of the milk-mirror is thin and fine, and the color of the skin can easily be seen.
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These apparent exceptions, however, are to be explained, in the large majority of cases, by causes outside of those which affect the appearance of the milk-mirror.
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As the hair of the milk-mirror has not the same direction as the hair which surrounds it, it may often be distinguished by a difference in the shade reflected by it.
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They are medium or bad, let the milk-mirror be what it may, if the veins of the belly are not large, and those of the udder apparent.
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It may be added that the shaving -- designed, as the dealers say, to beautify the cow -- is generally intended simply to destroy the milk-mirror, and to deprive buyers of one means of judging of the milking qualities of the cows.
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The reduction of these marks into a system, explaining the value of particular forms and sizes of the milk-mirror, belongs exclusively to Guénon.
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The milk-mirror on the calf is, indeed, small, but no smaller in proportion to its size than that of the cow; while its shape and form can generally be distinctly seen, particularly at the end of ten or twelve weeks.
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When the milk-mirror really presents only the mammary or lower part slightly indicated or developed, and the perinean part contracted, narrow, and irregular -- as in cut K-- the cows are middling.
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To these marks he gave the name of milk-mirror, or escutcheon, which consists in certain perceptible spots rising up from the udder in different directions, forms and sizes, on which the hair grows upward, whilst the hair on other parts of the body grows downward.
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It has, indeed, been very justly observed that we often see cows equally well formed, with precisely the same milk-mirror, and kept in the same circumstances, yet giving neither equal quantities nor similar qualities of milk.
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