Cubicow | The Camouflaged Cow Puzzle

The Cubicow (1913)

Above The first major introduction of cubism and other varieties of Modern-era visual art to the American public is usually said to have occurred with the Armory Show in 1913. The American press had a field day, especially cartoonists. That same year, the San Francisco Call featured a series of cubist puzzles, one of which is shown above. The top diagram is the puzzle, which came with the challenge of MOO! WHERE IS THAT CUBICOW? The reader had a week to "find" a concealed, cubistic cow. By filling in some of the angled shapes, "a moving likeness will result, cubistic but unmistakable." Voila! In the paper the following week (April 27, page 10) the solution appeared (as shown above).

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AT WOODSIDE in Mail (Adelaide, South Australia) July 26, 1941, p. 6—

Preparing for a practical demonstration on camouflage this week, instructors attached to an NCO's school went out and rigged up what is known as "personal camouflage"—a large piece of wirenetting with leaves and twigs attached.

As the class failed to appear in the morning, the instructors went home to lunch and returned later to find that their work had been for nothing—cows nearby being the culprits.

The netting was again camouflaged and the lecture started. Shortly afterwards along came one of the cows seeking more food.

In attempting to drag the leaves off, she got her horn caught in the wire. The school broke off amid roars of laughter as, frightened by one of the instructors, the cow made off with the camouflage netting on her horn and an enraged instructor chasing behind.

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A COW OF A TRICK. Home Guards In Action. Cairns Post (Queensland AU), November 6, 1943, p. 2—

Cows set large forces of Home Guardsmen [in the UK] in motion on Sunday.

During maneuvers, a corporal was posted in a field with a carefully camouflaged machine gun, ready to meet the "Enemy."

No enemy appeared, but cows twice ate the camouflage from the machine gun.

The exasperated corporal threw [fire]crackers at them. The cows paid no attention.

But hearing the bang an officer leapt to his phone and reported "distant gunfire."

His message went from company to battalion to area headquarters, which set in motion large forces to deal with the situation. 

No ememy appeared, but the cows ate the camouflage a third time.

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HERE AND THERE IN THE SOS. The Stars and Stripes, October 4, 1918, p. 6—

Yankee camouflage artists are getting so blooming clever with their trick foliage and fadeaway effects that they are fooling the animals as well as the Huns…SOS headquarters has just received a claim for 2,000 francs from a French woman for the loss of two cows which, she alleges, died from eating camouflaged grass draped around a pillbox which the Yankees had set up in the back meadow lot of her farm behind the British front.