234 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
work—‘ Wild Traits in Tame Animals,” by Dr. Louis Robinson— 
the statement that the “ wild white cattle” are direct descendants 
of the Urus or Bos primigenius, I took the liberty of asking the 
author what proof he had that such was the case. I now take 
the further liberty of quoting some parts of his exceedingly cour- 
teous and interesting reply :— 
Dr. Robinson says—“I am afraid I can only refer you to the 
statements made by Darwin, Nilsson, Riitimeyer, and Boyd 
Dawkins. Your conjecture interests me very much, especially as 
I have long had doubts as to whether ‘wild’ white cattle of 
Chillingham and elsewhere are the descendants of any truly wild 
breed. One scarcely ever finds wild animals outside the Arctic 
Zone of a white colour, and I think it is extremely probable that 
human selection long ages ago accounts for their colour. You 
will find some very interesting notes on the subject in Darwin’s 
‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ page 84. After 
reading a great deal of the literature published on the subject, I 
have come to the conclusion that practically all the views put 
forward as to the descent of various strains of modern cattle from 
this and that wild ancestor are not much more than guesses. 
I think we may be fairly sure of this, that in a country as 
settled and civilised as Britain was at the time of the Roman 
invasion there were few, if any, truly wild cattle. One finds that 
in all parts of the world where men have horses—and also among 
the savages of South Africa—the cattle have been brought under 
human control. This seems rather to support your view that the 
cattle of Chillingham are feral and not truly wild.” 
Our common cattle, Bos taurus, is no doubt a mixed product of 
extremely numerous and very diverse factors, developed in 
widely separated regions. This animal when wild was probably 
hunted by man, but, tamed, it has accompanied him in all his 
wanderings. Its geological history in Britain, according to Owen, 
is first a large species of ox, Bos antiquus, followed by a somewhat 
smaller but still stupendous wild ox, Bos primigenius, succeeded 
in turn by an aboriginal British ox of much smaller stature with 
short horns, Bos longifrons. This, savs Owen, was probably the 
source of the domesticated cattle of the Celtic race before the 
Roman invasion. Czsar tells us that Britain was well peopled, 
and that they possessed numerous large herds of domesticated 
