On the whole we may conclude, more especially from the researches of Boyd Dawkins, that European cattle are descended from two species; and there is no improbability in this fact, for the genus Bos readily yields to domestication. Besides these two species and the zebu, the yak, the gayal, and the arni (3/47. Isid. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 'Hist. Nat. Gen.' tome 3, 96.) (not to mention the buffalo or genus Bubalus) have been domesticated; making altogether six species of Bos. The zebu and the two European species are now extinct in a wild state. Although certain races of cattle were domesticated at a very ancient period in Europe, it does not follow that they were first domesticated here. Those who place much reliance on philology argue that they were imported from the East. (3/48. Idem tome 3 pages 82, 91.) It is probable that they originally inhabited a temperate or cold climate, but not a land long covered with snow; for our cattle, as we have seen in the chapter on Horses, have not the instinct of scraping away the snow to get at the herbage beneath. No one could behold the magnificent wild bulls on the bleak Falkland Islands in the southern hemisphere, and doubt about the climate being admirably suited to them. Azara has remarked that in the temperate regions of La Plata the cows conceive when two years old, whilst in the much hotter country of Paraguay they do not conceive till three years old; "from which fact," as he adds, "one may conclude that cattle do not succeed so well in warm countries." (3/49. 'Quadrupedes du Paraguay' tome 2 page 360.)
Bos primigenius and longifrons have been ranked by nearly all palaeontologists as distinct species; and it would not be reasonable to take a different view simply because their domesticated descendants now intercross with the utmost freedom. All the European breeds have so often been crossed both intentionally and unintentionally, that, if any sterility had ensued from such unions, it would certainly have been detected. As zebus inhabit a distant and much hotter region, and as they differ in so many characters from our European cattle, I have taken pains to ascertain whether the two forms are fertile when crossed. The late Lord Powis imported some zebus and crossed them with common cattle in Shropshire; and I was assured by his steward that the cross-bred animals were perfectly fertile with both parent-stocks. Mr. Blyth informs me that in India hybrids, with various proportions of either blood, are quite fertile; and this can hardly fail to be known, for in some districts (3/50. Walther 'Das Rindvieh' 1817 s. 30.) the two species are allowed to breed freely together. Most of the cattle which were first introduced into Tasmania were humped, so that at one time thousands of crossed animals existed there; and Mr. B. O'Neile Wilson, M.A., writes to me from Tasmania that he has never heard of any sterility having been observed. He himself formerly possessed a herd of such crossed cattle, and all were perfectly fertile; so much so, that he cannot remember even a single cow failing to calve. These several facts afford an important confirmation of the Pallasian doctrine that the descendants of species which when first domesticated would if crossed have been in all probability in some degree sterile, become perfectly fertile after a long course of domestication. In a future chapter we shall see that this doctrine throws some light on the difficult subject of Hybridism.
I have alluded to the cattle in Chillingham Park, which, according to Rutimeyer, have been very little changed from the Bos primigenius type. This park is so ancient that it is referred to in a record of the year 1220. The cattle in their instincts and habits are truly wild. They are white, with the inside of the ears reddish-brown, eyes rimmed with black, muzzles brown, hoofs black, and horns white tipped with black. Within a period of thirty-three years about a dozen calves were born with "brown and blue spots upon the cheeks or necks; but these, together with any defective animals, were always destroyed." According to Bewick, about the year 1770 some calves appeared with black ears; but these were also destroyed by the keeper, and black ears have not since reappeared. The wild white cattle in the Duke of Hamilton's park, where I have heard of the birth of a black calf, are said by Lord Tankerville to be inferior to those at Chillingham. The cattle kept until the year 1780 by the Duke of Queensberry, but now extinct, had their ears, muzzle, and orbits of the eyes black. Those which have existed from time immemorial at Chartley, closely resemble the cattle at Chillingham, but are larger, "with some small difference in the colour of the ears." "They frequently tend to become entirely black; and a singular superstition prevails in the vicinity that, when a black calf is born, some calamity impends over the noble house of Ferrers. All the black calves are destroyed." The cattle at Burton Constable in Yorkshire, now extinct, had ears, muzzle, and the tip of the tail black. Those at Gisburne, also in Yorkshire, are said by Bewick to have been sometimes without dark muzzles, with the inside alone of the ears brown; and they are elsewhere said to have been low in stature and hornless. (3/51. I am much indebted to the present Earl of Tankerville for information about his wild cattle; and for the skull which was sent to Prof. Rutimeyer. The fullest account of the Chillingham cattle is given by Mr. Hindmarsh, together with a letter by the late Lord Tankerville, in 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.' volume 2 1839 page 274. See Bewick 'Quadrupeds' 2nd edition 1791 page 35 note. With respect to those of the Duke of Queensberry see Pennant 'Tour in Scotland' page 109. For those of Chartley, see Low 'Domesticated Animals of Britain' 1845 page 238. For those of Gisburne see Bewick 'Quadrupeds' and 'Encyclop. of Rural Sports' page 101.)
The several above-specified differences in the park-cattle, slight though they be, are worth recording, as they show that animals living nearly in a state of nature, and exposed to nearly uniform conditions, if not allowed to roam freely and to cross with other herds, do not keep as uniform as truly wild animals. For the preservation of a uniform character, even within the same park, a certain degree of selection—that is, the destruction of the dark-coloured calves—is apparently necessary.
Boyd Dawkins believes that the park-cattle are descended from anciently domesticated, and not truly wild animals; and from the occasional appearance of dark-coloured calves, it is improbable that the aboriginal Bos primigenius was white. It is curious what a strong, though not invariable, tendency there is in wild or escaped cattle to become white with coloured ears, under widely different conditions of life. If the old writers Boethius and Leslie (3/52. Boethius was born in 1470; 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.' volume 2 1839 page 281; and volume 4 1849 page 424.) can be trusted, the wild cattle of Scotland were white and furnished with a great mane; but the colour of their ears is not mentioned. In Wales (3/53. 'Youatt on Cattle' 1834 page 48: See also page 242, on shorthorn cattle. Bell in his 'British Quadrupeds' page 423 states that, after long attending to the subject, he has found that white cattle invariably have coloured ears.), during the tenth century, some of the cattle are described as being white with red ears. Four hundred cattle thus coloured were sent to King John; and an early record speaks of a hundred cattle with red ears having been demanded as a compensation for some offence, but, if the cattle were of a dark or black colour, 150 were to be presented. The black cattle of North Wales apparently belong, as we have seen, to the small longifrons type: and as the alternative was offered of either 150 dark cattle, or 100 white cattle with red ears, we may presume that the latter were the larger beasts, and probably belonged to the primigenius type. Youatt has remarked that at the present day, whenever cattle of the shorthorn breed are white, the extremities of their ears are more or less tinged with red.
The cattle which have run wild on the Pampas, in Texas, and in two parts of Africa, have become of a nearly uniform dark brownish-red. (3/54. Azara 'Quadrupedes du Paraguay' tome 2 page 361. Azara quotes Buffon for the feral cattle of Africa. For Texas see 'Times' February 18, 1846.) On the Ladrone Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, immense herds of cattle, which were wild in the year 1741, are described as "milk-white, except their ears, which are generally black." (3/55. Anson's Voyage. See Kerr and Porter 'Collection' volume 12 page 103.) The Falkland Islands, situated far south, with all the conditions of life as different as it is possible to conceive from those of the Ladrones, offer a more interesting case. Cattle have run wild there during eighty or ninety years; and in the southern districts the animals are mostly white, with their feet, or whole heads, or only their ears black; but my informant, Admiral Sulivan (3/56. See also Mr. Mackinnon's pamphlet on the Falkland Islands, page 24.), who long resided on these islands, does not believe that they are ever purely white. So that in these two archipelagos we see that the cattle tend to become white with coloured ears. In other parts of the Falkland Islands other colours prevail: near Port Pleasant brown is the common tint; round Mount Usborn, about half the animals in some of the herds were lead- or mouse-coloured, which elsewhere is an unusual tint. These latter cattle, though generally inhabiting high land, breed about a month earlier than the other cattle; and this circumstance would aid in keeping them distinct and in perpetuating a peculiar colour. It is worth recalling to mind that blue or lead-coloured marks have occasionally appeared on the white cattle of Chillingham. So plainly different were the colours of the wild herds in different parts of the Falkland Islands, that in hunting them, as Admiral Sulivan informs me, white spots in one district, and dark spots in another district, were always looked out for on the distant hills. In the intermediate districts, intermediate colours prevailed. Whatever the cause may be, this tendency in the wild cattle of the Falkland Islands, which are all descended from a few brought from La Plata, to break up into herds of three different colours, is an interesting fact.
Returning to the several British breeds, the conspicuous difference in general appearance between Shorthorns, Longhorns (now rarely seen), Herefords, Highland cattle, Alderneys, etc., must be familiar to every one. A part of this difference may be attributed to descent from primordially distinct species; but we may feel sure that there has been a considerable amount of variation. Even during the Neolithic period, the domestic cattle were to a certain extent variable. Within recent times most of the breeds have been modified by careful and methodical selection. How strongly the characters thus acquired are inherited, may be inferred from the prices realised by the improved breeds; even at the first sale of Colling's Shorthorns, eleven bulls reached an average of 214 pounds, and lately Shorthorn bulls have been sold for a thousand guineas, and have been exported to all quarters of the world.
Some constitutional differences may be here noticed. The Shorthorns arrive at maturity far earlier than the wilder breeds, such as those of Wales or the Highlands. This fact has been shown in an interesting manner by Mr. Simonds (3/57. 'The Age of the Ox, Sheep, Pig' etc. by Prof. James Simonds, published by order of the Royal Agricult. Soc.) who has given a table of the average period of their dentition, which proves that there is a difference of no less than six months in the appearance of the permanent incisors. The period of gestation, from observations made by Tessier on 1131 cows, varies to the extent of eighty-one days; and what is more interesting, M. Lefour affirms "that the period of gestation is longer in the large German cattle than in the smaller breeds." (3/58. 'Ann. Agricult. France' April 1837 as quoted in 'The Veterinary' volume 12 page 725. I quote Tessier's observations from 'Youatt on Cattle' page 527.) With respect to the period of conception, it seems certain that Alderney and Zetland cows often become pregnant earlier than other breeds. (3/59. 'The Veterinary' volume 8 page 681 and volume 10 page 268. Low 'Domest. Animals, etc.' page 297.) Lastly, as four fully developed mammae is a generic character in the genus Bos (3/60. Mr. Ogleby in 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' 1836 page 138, and 1840 page 4. Quatrefages quotes Philippi 'Revue des Cours Scientifiques' February 12, 1688 page 657, that the cattle of Piacentino have thirteen dorsal vertebrae and ribs in the place of the ordinary number of twelve.), it is worth notice that with our domestic cows the two rudimentary mammae often become fairly well developed and yield milk.
As numerous breeds are generally found only in long-civilised countries, it may be well to show that in some countries inhabited by barbarous races, who are frequently at war with each other, and therefore have little free communication, several distinct breeds of cattle now exist or formerly existed. At the Cape of Good Hope Leguat observed, in the year 1720, three kinds. (3/61. Leguat's Voyage quoted by Vasey in his 'Delineations of the Ox-tribe' page 132.) At the present day various travellers have noticed the differences in the breeds in Southern Africa. Sir Andrew Smith several years ago remarked to me that the cattle possessed by the different tribes of Caffres, though living near each other under the same latitude and in the same kind of country, yet differed, and he expressed much surprise at the fact. Mr. Andersson has described (3/62. 'Travels in South Africa' pages 317, 336.) the Damara, Bechuana, and Namaqua cattle; and he informs me in a letter that the cattle north of Lake Ngami are likewise different, as Mr. Galton has heard is also the case with the cattle of Benguela. The Namaqua cattle in size and shape nearly resemble European cattle, and have short stout horns and large hoofs. The Damara cattle are very peculiar, being big-boned, with slender legs, and small hard feet; their tails are adorned with a tuft of long bushy hair nearly touching the ground, and their horns are extraordinarily large. The Bechuana cattle have even larger horns, and there is now a skull in London with the two horns 8 ft. 8 1/4 in. long, as measured in a straight line from tip to tip, and no less than 13 ft. 5 in. as measured along their curvature! Mr. Andersson in his letter to me says that, though he will not venture to describe the differences between the breeds belonging to the many different sub-tribes, yet such certainly exist, as shown by the wonderful facility with which the natives discriminate them.
That many breeds of cattle have originated through variation, independently of descent from distinct species, we may infer from what we see in South America, where the genus Bos was not endemic, and where the cattle which now exist in such vast numbers are the descendants of a few imported from Spain and Portugal. In Columbia, Roulin (3/63. 'Mem. de 1'Institut present. par divers Savans' tome 6 1835 page 333. For Brazil see 'Comptes Rendus' June 15, 1846. See Azara 'Quadrupedes du Paraguay' tome 2 pages 359, 361.) describes two peculiar breeds, namely, pelones, with extremely thin and fine hair, and calongos, absolutely naked. According to Castelnau there are two races in Brazil, one like European cattle, the other different, with remarkable horns. In Paraguay, Azara describes a breed which certainly originated in S. America, called chivos, "because they have straight vertical horns, conical, and very large at the base." He likewise describes a dwarf race in Corrientes, with short legs and a body larger than usual. Cattle without horns, and others with reversed hair, have also originated in Paraguay.