BOS LONGIFRONS 23 



that what is now taken on credit will be made 

 good hereafter. It is a well-known fact in 

 human history that, as one race retires before 

 another, the retiring and the invading races are 

 usually accompanied by some part of their live 

 stock, and above all by their cattle which, in 

 earlier times, not only afforded food and clothing 

 but took a chief share in tilling the earth, and 

 thus were an outstanding necessity in man's 

 existence. The Helvetii, and Cassievelaunus, 

 the British chief who drove his people and their 

 flocks into the woods on the approach of the 

 Romans in Caesar's time, and the Spaniards, the 

 English, and the Boers in recent times might 

 be referred to as examples. When the Celtic 

 people retired before the English they carried 

 their cattle along with them into the west and 

 the north ; and till this day, the cattle in the 

 Celtic parts of Britain, which are descended from 

 the cattle of the pre- Roman Celts, and through 

 them from the pre-historic Bos longifronsy are 

 predominantly black, and, as we look farther and 

 farther into the past, we find the territory of 

 these black cattle larger, and the regularity of 

 their colour increasing. Till nearly the end 

 of the seventeenth century, Scotland, Ireland, 

 Wales, Cornwall, and the north of England 

 were almost fully occupied by black cattle, among 

 which there was a sprinkling of reds, whites, and 

 brindles, and an occasional dun ; in still earlier 



