
WHITE CATTLE : AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 255 
It has been noted that the original source of the cattle in the south 
of Italy is said to be Egypt, and these are in turn said to be derived 
from the Zebu or Bos indicus. This humped race is practically 
white, and no wild type is known. A feral race existed in India, 
to which reference will be made later. Murray, in his “Geographical 
Distribution of Mammals,” considers the Zebu to be the parent 
stock of all cattle, and Riitimeyer advances the opinion that the 
Zebu was the progenitor of Bos longifrons. The Zebu is an Eastern 
animal, and the seat of the origin of the ox is also said to be in 
the East, though it has generally been assigned to a part of Asia 
not very remote from Europe. Darwin and other naturalists, 
however, dissent from Riitimeyer’s and Murray’s views. Yet we 
know that Zebus and ordinary cattle breed freely, and it is a 
matter of common observation in India that in such cross-breeds 
the hump of the Zebu disappears. It is said that the descendants 
of the Indian Zebu, crossed by the late Earl of Powis with English 
cattle, were “extraordinarily wild.” The Zebu has also been 
crossed with Devons by Mr. Parsons. These humped cattle, 
called ‘‘Indian cows,” “Indian bulls,” and ‘“ Brahminy cattle,” 
are to be found in England, as far as I am aware, at Charborough 
Park (Dorset), Dunstall Park (Stafford), Arundel Park (Sussex), 
and Rigmaden Park (Westmoreland). A herd of these cattle, if - 
the hump be kept out of view, looks very much like our ‘‘ wild 
white breed.” Again, the skull of the Kalmuck ox found in Russia 
closely resembles that of the Zebu, and we have both horned and 
hornless Zebus. The “bagoudha” of the North-West Provinces 
in India, is simply a hornless Zebu of a dull-white colour, and in 
Palestine we find white hornless cattle without humps that bear 
a strong likeness to Zebus, The Zebu is the white animal of the 
East. Oriental wild cattle, such as the Gaur, Gayal, and Banting, 
being in colour dark-brown or blackish to reddish-brown. Gayals 
are kept in several English parks, I believe. Vasey makes the 
attempt to distinguish between the Zebu and the ox by noting 
that the former has 4 sacral and 18 caudal vertebrae, while the 
latter has 5 sacral and 21 caudal vertebra. But if we turn to 
Flower’s *‘ Osteology of the Mammalia,” we find in the table given 
there that Bos tawrus has only 19 caudal vertebre, while appar- 
ently Bos primigenius has none. Too much stress then cannot 
be put on the number of vertebrae. They may have been lost or not 
