SCOTLAND AND ITS PAST. 



HORNED cattle are said to be indigenous to Scot- 

 land. From prehistoric research, Wilson 1 states, on 

 evidence no doubt satisfactory, that in these early 

 times " vast herds of wild cattle of gigantic propor- 

 tions and fierce aspect roamed through the chace." 



The earliest historical notice of British cattle are 

 in the " Commentaries " of Caesar, in which he mentions 

 their abundance, and that the food of the inhabitants 

 was milk and flesh, to the neglect of tillage ; and 

 Strabo 2 praises the bountiful supply of milk, but 

 denies to them the art of making cheese. 



Darwin 3 states that JBos primigenius existed as a 

 wild animal at this time, and that Bos longifrons was 

 domesticated in England during the Roman period, 

 and supplied food to the Roman legionaries. 4 



At this early period, the savage time, so to speak, 

 the same cattle seem to have been found more or 

 less on both sides of the border ; and in considering 

 the wild cattle of Scotland, it will be useful to re- 

 view in some measure the cattle of England, and the 

 state of the country in those days. Fitz Stephen, 2 



1 Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. 



2 James Wilson, in Enc. Brit, xiv, 214. 



s Animals and Plants under Domestication, N. Y. 1868, i, 104. 

 * British Pleistocene Mammalia. Dawkins and Sandford, p. xv. 



