THE NORSE CONTINGENT 61 



systematic attempt to breed them pure unless 

 by a very few owners of small herds, their extinc- 

 tion seems only a matter of not very many years. 

 At the present day the Irish Maoiles are generally 

 full-sized cattle. There are many colours among 

 them, viz. black, red, brindled, flecked, yellow, 

 and dun. Yellow is generally held to be the 

 proper colour. Here again we get back to light 

 dun, the original colour of all the other hornless 

 breeds ; and one of the breeders writes that he 

 once owned a " steel gray Mulline." The Irish 

 Maoiles have also some other characters common 

 to some of the other breeds. They are usually 

 good milkers, and are sought after on this 

 account ; many of them give very rich milk ; 

 they are often short-legged, big bodied, narrow 

 backed, with sickle-shaped hocks that brush each 

 other at every step. 



Looking back again at these descriptions of 

 the hornless British breeds, there can be no other 

 conclusion than that they did not originate in 

 separate and independent reversions or variations, 

 but that they were all descended from the same 

 race, which was entirely different from the others 

 in Britain. It was hornless, of course, it was 

 light dun in colour, and small in size ; it had a 

 long "snake" head, narrow chine and loins, a 

 deep body, short thin legs, sickle-shaped hocks, 

 and it gave a good yield of milk richer than usual. 



The fact that the hornless breeds were located 



