492 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xiv. 



time, the large breed of oxen from which, by a continual 

 process of selection, our larger and more valuable breeds 

 are descended. 



The small Celtic short-horn was the only domestic 

 breed known in Eoman Britain, and its remains are ex- 

 ceedingly abundant in the refuse-heaps belonging to that 

 period. Had any other large cattle been used, their 

 bones would undoubtedly have been preserved in the 

 same manner as those of all the other animals kept by 

 the British farmers. 



The first notice of cattle differing from the small 

 dark Celtic short-horn is to be found in the Venedotian 

 laws of Howel Dha, in which " white cows with red ears " 

 are mentioned. These laws were codified in the tenth or 

 eleventh century, but the customs to which they relate 

 date back to a much earlier period. In a later transla- 

 tion of the Welsh laws, a hundred white cows with red 

 ears are considered equal in value to a hundred and fifty 

 black cattle. The white cattle are identical with those 

 of Chillingham, 1 usually considered to be wild, but which 

 more probably are their descendants, and have inherited 

 their characters without change. It is not likely that 

 so large an animal could have survived in Britain into 

 the Historic period in a wild state, because its creamy- 

 white colour would make it conspicuous to its enemies, and 

 render concealment impossible in so densely-populated 

 an island as Britain. These large cattle are distributed 

 throughout every part of Britain conquered by the 

 English, while the Celtic short-horn only survives in 

 those parts in which the British had taken refuge. 

 From these considerations it may be inferred that the 



1 Further details as to the English cattle are given in my Preliminary 

 Treatise, British Pleistocene Mammalia, Palaeont. Soc. 1878, p. xiv. 



