12 EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



What we are asked to believe is that our wild 

 white cattle, and some at least of our domestic 

 breeds trace back direct to this ancient giant, 

 Bos primigenius. Sentiment and vanity tempt us 

 to accept the belief, although we admit, in doing 

 so, that our forefathers have left us a sadly 

 degenerate legacy. We must dissent, however, 

 from other considerations, the chief of which is 

 that no remains of Bos primigenius have been 

 found in deposits later than those of the Bronze 

 Age. " The Urus or Bos primigenius ... is 

 characteristic of the time when men used polished 

 stone implements, that is, of the Neolithic or 

 Newer Stone Age. It probably did not become 

 extinct until the Bronze Age." ^ 



Even were the geological record less clear, it 

 would still be difficult to prove that Bos primi- 

 genius was the ancestor of our modern cattle. 

 The skeletal inconsistencies are too great. 

 Leaving other considerations aside, and taking 

 Fleming's measurements, which are the smallest, 

 it is inconceivable that an animal whose skull was 

 27 inches long by 1 1 inches broad should be 

 the ancestor of, say, the modern Shorthorn, an 

 animal not much younger in time, whose skull 

 is 23 or 24 inches long by 1 1 or 12 broad : that 

 is, that the ratio of length to breadth should 

 change from ^jJ to f . 



It has been maintained that Bos primigenius 

 * McKenny Hughes. 



