WHITE CATTLE : AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 271 



3. Irish polled or Moyle cattle, said to have been common even 



liftv vears asro. In colour thev were either dun, black, 

 or white. 



4. The Kerry cattle, black or even red in colour, having 



short horns turning upwards, and being small in 



size. This existino; and docile breed is reDorted of in 



the days of Elizabeth and Charles 11. as being exceedingly 



ungentle and ''as wicked and rebellious as the people." 



This summary will show, I think, that Ireland has had samples 



of all the most ancient types of cattle, but the wild white bull is 



not in evidence. 



I would now asain summarise 

 what are the points I wish to 

 emphasise before I direct atten- 

 tion to the historical evidence 

 which, I think, allows us, at 

 anv rate, to say that the various 

 attribtites given to our white 

 cattle, such as being indigenous 

 and roaming wild in dense pre- 

 historic forests, L^c, are improb- 







Figs. 29, 30.— Irish Shorthorns. 



able, if not impossible. I cannot sum up better than in the words of 

 Professor Hughes, who, in "Archseologia," vol. Iv., p. 34, says that 

 we may take it as pretty well established that " the Urns char- 

 acterises the Neolithic age, having first appeared in Palaeolithic 

 times with the Bison, and having become extinct in Britain long 

 before the Boman occupation. The Celtic Shorthorn appeared 

 with the Urus in Neolithic times, lived down and through the 

 Boman occupation, and thus may be regarded as the characteristic 

 ox of the Bronze age. The Bomaus improved the Celtic Short- 

 horn by crossing it with cattle imported from Italy. The form 

 of the Boman ox, as inferred from contemporary art, being 



