Cattle

Cattle are the subjects of a noseprint-identification scheme discussed by Peter Diamond and Croxley. Their individual markings become a practical answer to cattle rustling—and an unexpectedly comic measure of the work available to a detective whose current duties have moved away from murder cases.

Identification and Method

Croxley explains that every bovine noseprint is unique to its animal, much as a human fingerprint is unique to a person. The procedure is direct: ink is applied to the animal’s nose, then paper is pressed against it to record the print. Cattle are thus identified not by a tag or a description but by a physical pattern belonging to each individual.

The method makes the animals’ distinctive noses usable as evidence. The scheme had already processed seven hundred cows, giving the approach substantial scale rather than leaving it as a theoretical novelty. Its stated purpose is to combat cattle rustling, linking individual identification to the prevention of livestock theft.

The Scheme and Its Police Context

The noseprinting project was established with the Dorset County Landowners' Association. Croxley says he has recently been put in charge, although he does not understand why he was selected and notes that he was not brought up in the country. He sees little prospect in the assignment, a discouragement that gives the practical scheme a personal dimension: the work may be useful, but its new officer does not regard it as a promising career direction.

Peter Diamond initially responds with a joke about turnips, which Croxley corrects by explaining that his work concerns cattle. The contrast depends on Croxley’s complete seriousness and Diamond’s difficulty containing his amusement. Yet Diamond’s teasing does not end with the joke. He proposes that Croxley put noseprints on a computer and build a database covering the cows in Dorset, presenting a routine-looking task as an emerging form of identification technology with room to grow. This is a suggestion, not a report that such a database was actually created.

Narrative Significance

Cattle are not individualized as characters in this exchange; their narrative importance lies in the way their bodily differences can be recorded and used. The noseprint turns a familiar farm animal into a source of identifying information, while the comparison with fingerprints makes the method intelligible within police work. The seven hundred recorded animals supply a concrete measure of the scheme’s reach.

The conversation also sets the animals’ identification work against Croxley’s hopes of returning to a major murder inquiry. After hearing about the public interest in the Penny Black case, Croxley wonders whether Diamond might be assembling a larger investigation and recruiting detectives. Diamond’s proposed database offers a different kind of prospect, but Croxley fears that the new work could occupy him for years. The cattle scheme therefore remains both a response to rural theft and the occasion for a wry exchange about how police work, and police careers, may take unexpected directions.