124 CATTLE DEVONS 



proportion to thickness, straighter, and less raised. The 

 shoulder is specially neat and well formed, the barrel joining 

 on behind with scarcely a depression at the region of the 

 heart-girth a defective point in many breeds. The quality 

 of the beef is excellent. 



The early history of the breed is lost in obscurity. What 

 is known is focussed by Housman and Sinclair in the History 

 of the Devon Breed of Cattle (1893). Various hypotheses are 

 there advanced : (i) that it may have been descended from 

 the aboriginal cattle of Britain, probably through the union 

 of longifrons and urus ; (2) that, in common with the Sussex 

 breed, it may have been an offshoot of the red Salers cattle 

 a French breed which strongly resembles the Sussex " in the 

 horn and general character," and which, in crossing with the 

 Devon, produced " a perfectly harmonious blending " ; (3) that 

 they may have been a result, as asserted of the Hereford, 

 of crossing the original cattle of the district with cattle from 

 Flanders ; (4) that they may be traced back to the period 

 of the landing of the Phoenicians in search of Cornish tin, 

 and thus be of Spanish or North African extraction. 1 An 

 Irish record exists which shows that the Devon cattle taken 

 to the South of Ireland were at that time red in colour. One 

 of the most complete of the early descriptions of the breed is 

 given in George Culley's Observations on Live Stock (1794 

 edition), condensed by Sinclair : 



" Devon cattle were then considered to be of the greatest 

 purity, and of the best kind in the vicinity of Barnstaple (but 

 other writers add North and South Molton). They were 

 there of a high red colour, white spots (particularly if running 

 into one another), being regarded as signs of impurity. He 

 described them as having a light dun ring round the eye, 

 and the muzzle of the same colour, fine bone, clean neck, 

 medium length of upward bent horns, thin faces, fine chaps, 

 wide hips, a "tolerable" barrel, but rather flat on the sides, 



1 Dr R. Munro, in Prehistoric Scotland, says there is a consensus of 

 educated English opinion that there is no evidence of such a trade ever 

 having existed, though the Phoenicians had for a long time a monopoly of 

 navigation and trade in the Mediterranean. It is an interesting fact that 

 the numerous cattle of the Islands of Andros and Tinos, and a few others 

 in the Greek Archipelago, resemble North Devon cattle, and when crossed 

 with them yield progeny of a similar type. The breed is very ancient ; 

 the animals are light red, longer legged, and narrower than Devons. Their 

 many defects are doubtless due to in-breeding from time immemorial. 



