BOYD DAWK1NS AND M'KENNY HUGHES 33 



consequently, the ancestors of the wild white cattle must have 

 broken away from civilisation. In addition to the arguments 

 which have been advanced against this view, it may be said 

 that, had the wild cattle originated through animals escaping 

 from domestication, they would certainly not all have been 

 white in so many centres at such great distances apart ; some 

 of the numerous varieties of coloured cattle would surely have 

 become established somewhere. That many coloured cattle 

 escaped in an unfenced country and joined the wild herds in 

 the woods before they were enclosed in parks is certain, but, 

 weakened for " rustling " by domestication, no more of them 

 would survive than would be easily absorbed by a great 

 preponderating volume of wild blood. The occurrence (from 

 time to time) in the semi-wild park herds of black, dun, blue, 

 and sable specimens may be fully explained by the admixture 

 of the blood of animals which escaped from domestication, if 

 indeed they do not indicate what has been claimed repeatedly, 

 that the original colour of the wild cattle was not white, but 

 dark for protective purposes. It is inconceivable that pro- 

 tective colouring could be of any real value to the powerful 

 animals which dominated all rivals in their forest haunts, 

 especially in view of the fact, gathered from observation of 

 the habits of the Chillingham cattle, that the calves following 

 their mothers join the main herd very soon after birth. 



If the reduced size and osteological differences on which 

 Dawkins partially founds his opinion were realised on the 

 continent of Europe as a result of evolution from the original 

 gigantic ox, in the case of the cattle which he supposes to 

 have been brought to this country and permitted to run wild, 

 why could similar changes not have occurred here among the 

 local representatives of the race ? They were much more 

 likely to alter in form and character than to become extinct 

 under the conditions that prevailed, which, if Storer be 

 correct, led through degeneration to diminished size. 1 



Professor T. M 'Kenny Hughes 2 takes a similar view to 



1 Important light is thrown on this debatable question by a find at 

 Stone of the bones and skulls of the urus, described by W. Wells Bladen 

 (President) to the North Staffordshire Naturalists' Field Club, 2Oth 

 Nov. 1895, and recorded in vol. xxx. of its Transactions (1895-6). 



2 In the Proc. Soc. Ant., London, I4th June 1894, and in the Journal 

 of the Royal Agric. Soc. of England, Sept. 1894. 



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