CHAPTER II. 



THE BRITISH OX. 



In the earliest and most authentic account that we possess of the 

 British Isles, the Commentaries of Caesar, we learn that the Britons 

 possessed great numbers of cattle. No satisfactory description of 

 these cattle occurs in any ancient author ; but they, with occasional 

 exceptions, possessed no great bulk or beauty. 



Caesar tells us that the Britons neglected tillage, and lived on milk 

 and flesh ; and other authors corroborate this account of the early 

 inhabitants of the British Islands. It was that occupation and mode 

 of life which suited their state of society. The island was divided 

 into many petty sovereignties ; no fixed property was secure ; and 

 that alone was valuable whicli might be hurried away at the threat- 

 ened approach of an invader. Many centuries after this, when, 

 although one sovereign seemed to reign paramount over the whole of 

 the kingdom, there continued to be endless contests among the feudal 

 barons, and still that property alone was valuable which could be 

 secured within the walls of the castle, or driven beyond the invader's 

 reach ; an immense stock of provisions was always stored up in the 

 various fortresses, both for the vassals and the cattle ; or it was con- 

 trived that the latter should be driven to the demesnes of some 

 friendly baron, or concealed in some inland recess. 



When the government became more powerful and settled, and 

 property of every kind was proportionably secured, as well as more 

 equally divided, the plough came into use ; and agricultural produc- 

 tions were oftener cultivated, the reaping of which was sure after the 

 labor of sowing. Cattle were now comparatively neglected, and, for 

 Bome centuries, injuriously so. Their numbers diminished, and their 

 size appears to have diminished, too ; and it is only within the last 

 150 years that any serious and successful efforts have been made 

 jiaterially to improve them. 



In the comparative roving and uncertain life which our earlier and 

 ater ancestors led, their cattle would sometimes stray and be lost. 

 The country was then overgrown with forests, and the beasts betook 

 themselves to the recesses of these woods, and became wild, and 

 fomeiimeb ferocipus. They, by degrees, grew so numerous, as to bo 



