COWS. 21 



There is much of good in the native cows of 

 different districts : the fault is, that sufficient 

 pains are not taken to select and perpetuate 

 the line of a breed that possesses at least the 

 merit of being acclimatised. The Castlemartin, of 

 Pembrokeshire, is a grand, good cow. They want 

 only a Collings or a Bakewell among them. But 

 the elegant black heifer of Mona's Isle, with her 

 curly-browed defiant lord, are the stock that please 

 me best. Points of rarest excellence have the spirited 

 herds that used to stem the wild waters of the straits 

 from shore to shore, under conduct of a few drovers 

 in a boat, with seldom or ever a loss ; being trans- 

 planted to Northamptonshire and the east coast, to 

 fatten on the scraps of more favoured and fastidious 

 kine. A worthy relic are they of the aboriginal 

 cattle, by which, in a great degree, the first known 

 inhabitants of our island lived, and which, on each 

 new invasion, they drove before them to the refuge 

 of their hill fastnesses. There are unhappily few 

 but Colonel Pennant with the means or inclination 

 to improve and restore them. Disposed, however, as 

 he is ever to give the best price for a promising 

 young cow, his people take not, to my idea, sufficient 

 pains in hunting them up. The two crack specimens 

 I saw amongst the shorthorns in the park were cer- 

 tainly inferior to several I saw subsequently here and 

 there upon the mountain side. The great defect of 

 the breed is its flat-sidedness. They are crossing 

 their heifers with Scotch polled bulls. If this 

 answers as well as did Collings's "dip into Gallo- 

 way blood," the North Welsh may win a name again 



