1 6 Oxen 



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 domesti- 

 cated 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 ot 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 

 JJr-us 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." If this statement be correct — and if it be also admitted 

 that the aurochs is the ultimate ancestor of all European cattle — it is 

 obvious that all the British breeds must be of continental origin. But, as 

 Professor Hughes remarks, "Caesar 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 

 IJrus, but to Bos longifrons. This, then, is the native breed with which we 



