2 EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



it would only irritate the people of Durham to 

 tell them that, when they set up a new cow in 

 their cathedral in place of the one that had done 

 duty for five hundred years, and when they took 

 such care that " the horns were made this time of 

 lead, lest she should ever again be reduced to the 

 condition of a polled beast," they may have erred 

 in assuming that the older cow had ever horns 

 at all ; although it might mollify them to know 

 that the legendary cow that was the means of 

 leading Saint Cuthbert's body to Durham was 

 ornamented in a manner that neither the city nor 

 the county of Durham need be ashamed of. 

 And, although it may involve some risk to tell 

 a Highland laird that the origin of his majestic 

 breed is not " lost in the mists of antiquity," or 

 the utilitarians of Aberdeen and Forfar that their 

 thrifty blacks are descended from small, thin- 

 fleshed, narrow-backed, sickle-hocked, light-dun 

 beasties, the risk may be minimised when it is 

 shown that the cattle of the Gaelic-speaking 

 Highlander in the west and the Scots-speaking 

 Lowlander in the east can be traced back to 

 those that accompanied their ancestors when 

 they came over the North Sea a thousand 

 years ago. 



And we must play the Vandal at the very 

 beginning with one of the most picturesque stories 

 in which our cattle have ever played a part. 

 Writers who have speculated upon the ancestry 



