68 The Irish Nakiralist. July, 



thick skins and abundant hair fitted to protect the animals 

 against long-continued rain, the eastern and drier districts 

 have been inhabited by varieties with thinner skins and 

 shorter hair and horns. Like the previous writer, Low omits 

 all reference to the Irish moyley, or hornless breed. ^ 



Long before the beginning of the last centur\^ cattle 

 were imported into Ireland with the result that the breeds 

 already in existence in that country became altered and 

 modified in character. Prof. Wilson tells us that the three 

 large breeds that were then brought into Ireland were the 

 long-horns, short-horns and Herefords.- 



It seems likely, therefore, that the long-horns and other 

 breeds of cattle found in the lowlands a hundred years ago 

 owe their presence in Ireland to such importations, and that 

 only the Kerry cattle can be looked upon as an aboriginal 

 breed. This accords with the views supported by Prof. 

 J. McKenny Hughes, who urged that even before the wild 

 ox [Bos primigenms) had entirely disappeared from England, 

 the native short-horn was present in Britain. This he 

 describes as a small animal about the size of the Kerry 

 breed, remarkable for the height of the forehead above the 

 orbits, for its strongly-developed occipital region, and its 

 small horns curved inward and forward. If it was not 

 indigenous, he thinks it must have been introduced by 

 man into the British Isles at a very remote period. Nilson 

 even claims that it was once wild in vSweden. This, remarks 

 Prof. Hughes, is the native breed with which we must 

 start in all our speculations as to the origin and develop- 

 ment of the British oxen.^ He considers the Kerry cattle 

 to be the most typical examples in the British Islands of 

 this what he calls " Celtic short -horn," whereas the Chilling- 

 ham breed is the nearest representative of the cattle intro- 

 duced by the Romans. I shall again allude to this peculiar 

 race of white cattle later on. 



1 Low, David : The breeds of the domestic animals of the British Isles. 

 London, 2 vols., 1852. 



2 Wilson, James : The origin of the Dexter- Kerry breed of cattle. 

 Scient. Proc. R. Dublin Soc. (N.S.), vol. xii., 1909. 



3 Hughes, J. McKenny : On the more important breeds of cattle 

 which have been recognised in the British Isles in successive periods. 

 Archceologia, vol. Iv., 1896. 



