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WHITE CATTLE; AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 271 
3. Irish polled or Moylé cattle, said to have been common even 
fifty years ago. In colour they 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 existing and docile breed is reported of in 
the days of Elizabeth and Charles II. 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 again summarise 
what are the points I wish to 
emphasise before I direct atten- 
tion to the historical evidence 
which, I think, allows us, at 
any rate, to say that the various 
attributes given to our white 
cattle, such as being indigenous 
and roaming wild in dense pre- 
historic forests, &c., are improb- 










Figs. 29, 30.—Irish Shorthorns. 
able, if notimpossible. I cannot sum up better than in the words of 
Professor Hughes, who, in “Archzologia,” vol. lv., p. 34, says that 
we may take it as pretty well established that “the Urus char- 
acterises the Neolithic age, having first appeared in Paleolithic 
times with the Bison, and having become extinct in Britain long 
before the Roman occupation. The Celtic Shorthorn appeared 
with the Urus in Neolithic times, lived down and through the 
Roman occupation, and thus may be regarded as the characteristic 
ox of the Bronze age. The Romans improved the Celtic Short- 
horn by crossing it with cattle imported from Italy. The form 
of the Roman ox, as inferred from contemporary art, being 
