There being no other primitive wild ox in Europe, and an Eastern
derivation in the highest degree improbable, it is evident that all the
domesticated breeds of European cattle must trace their ultimate ancestry to
the aurochs. It may, indeed, be admitted that some of the breeds—especially
those of Eastern Europe—may have crossed with African or Indian humped
cattle, but this does not affect the general proposition.
Taking the aurochs as the ultimate ancestor of all European domesticated
cattle, the question narrows itself as to whether any of the British
breeds can be regarded as its direct descendants. Some writers have taken
the view that the British white park-cattle were derived directly from the
aurochs. Not so Owen, who believed that the latter died out as a wild
race in Britain, and that the park-cattle are derived from the domesticated,
and, apparently, imported race. That this; view is probably correct, so
far as the intervention of a domesticated breed is concerned, may be
admitted.
Now we come to a much more difficult part of the question, and one
in regard to which much misapprehension has arisen. Professor T.
M‘Kenny Hughes, in a paper published in the Archceologia for 1896,
expresses the opinion that the British park-cattle are descended from a
breed imported into the country during the Roman occupation. And he
remarks that “ in England no bones which could possibly be referred to the
Urus have been proved to have been found with Roman or later remains,
and no evidence has been obtained of its ever having been domesticated
in this country.” I f this statement be correct— and i f it be also admitted
that the aurochs is the ultimate ancestor o f all European cattle__it is
obvious that all the British breeds must be of continental origin. But, as
Professor Hughes remarks, “ Ctesar mentions that there were large herds of
domesticated cattle in Britain, and we know from numerous excavations into
Roman and Roman-British rubbish-pits that these belonged, not to the
Urus, but to Bos longifrons. This, then, is the native breed with which we
Domesticated Breeds l 7
must start in all our speculations as to the origin and development of
British oxen. The Romans found that breed here, and no other.”
We have next to inquire what was the origin of this so-called Bos
longifrons, or Celtic short-horn, as it is often called ? On this subject
Professor Hughes writes that “ before the Urus had disappeared the native
short-horn Bos brachycerus, or longifrons, had arrived in Britain.” Doubtless
it had, but whence came it, and what was its parent form ? Professor
Riitimeyer considered that the Celtic short-horn was a stunted form o f the
aurochs, and that it existed only as a domestic race. On the other hand,
Professor Hughes o b s e r v e ^ I t is difficult to believe that all the scattered
and associated bones o f Bos longifrons which we find in the fens along with
the remains o f the beaver, the wolf, and the red deer, are those of domestic
animals. They may, of course, be those of domestic cattle run wild ; but
if Bos longifrons was not indigenous, it must have been introduced by man
into this country at a very remote period. At any rate, from its presence
in such great numbers in pre-Roman and Roman times, as proved by
excavations, we must admit a strong probability that some o f our recent
domestic breeds must have been derived from it.” The latter sentence may
be accepted as perfectly true; but where, it may be asked, is the Celtic shorthorn—
whether a wild or a domesticated animal— supposed to have come
from ? I f not separately created, it must assuredly have originated from
the aurochs, for there is no other earlier form to which its' pedigree
can probably be traced. The great fallacy in all the above is, of course,
the recognition of the Celtic short-horn as a distinct species. It is, and
can be, nothing but a variety o f Bos taurus, and Riitimeyer’s idea that
it is a stunted domesticated race o f the aurochs is almost certainly true.
And it thus seems impossible to accept the statement that, i f the aurochs
has left its mark in any domestic cattle in the British Isles, it can only be
through the long-horned German cattle.”
In the memoir cited much stress is laid on the difference in the curva-
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