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 longifrons, 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 



