WHITE CATTLE : AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 259 



outer portions, while occasionally almost black beasts are seen, the 

 darker colourins: being due to a more or less distant cross with 

 the Buffalo, ""^ which is also numerous in parts of Roumania. But, 

 putting occasional colour-sports to one side, the colour of the 

 Koumanian cattle is white, and white onlv. The hair is coarse and 

 long, as befits a beast that may have to withstand the rigours of 

 the Roumanian winter in the somewhat ramshackle wooden 

 buildings which do duty for byres on most of the farms, the 

 holdings of peasant-proprietors or peasant-tenants. It is shed 

 freely for the summer, when equally great heat prevails ; but the 

 coat is always thick, coarse, and somewhat bristly, thus offering 

 very necessary protection against the multifarious noxious insects 

 which afflict cattle in this country. Large, heavy, spreading 

 horns adorn the, comparatively speaking, light-formed heads ; the 

 eye is bright and black, the ears large and hairy. The general 

 build is heavy and massive, resembling more our Herefords than 

 any other British breed. They are big-boned cattle, standing on 

 large and spreading heavily-hoofed feet, varying, however, in size, 

 according to the districts — whether poor or rich — from whence 

 they come. Thus, in the arid and sparsely-cultivated w^astes of 

 the Dobruja they run quite small, whilst on the rich plains on 

 the other side of the Danube the bigger beasts are reared. They 

 are slow in arrivino: at maturitv, but resjular and fertile breeders, 

 the cows giving an abundance of rich creamy milk. Throughout 

 the summer they are pastured on the lower-lying, somewhat 

 marshy lands, which begirt the streams and rivers, and are housed 

 in barns and vards throughout the winter.'" 



Our evidence, so far as to the origin of our white cattle, may 

 be thus summed up : — 



1. The ox common and universal throughout Britain, and we 



may add Ireland, at the time of the Koman Conquest 

 was the Celtic Shorthorn, the Bos longifrons of Owen. 



2. This animal was small and dark-coloured, and such we find 



to be the existing type of animals in the regions to 

 which the Celts were ultimatelv driven and confined. 



^ This is doubted by experts, and Mr. Carnegie in a subsequent 

 communication to the Live Stock Journal, acknowledges that he has no 

 personal knowledge of such a cross. 



