328 THE OX. 



years, cease to be found. Had attention been directed at an 

 earlier period to its preservation, Ireland might have now 

 possessed a true Dairy Breed, not surpassed by any in the 

 kingdom. 



XI.-^THE FALKLAND BREED. 



The peninsula of Fife, stretching into the German Ocean, 

 between the noble estuaries of the Forth and Tay, has long 

 been possessed of cattle of a larger size than those of the higher 

 countries, and exhibiting such points of resemblance with 

 one another, as to have acquired the appellation of a Breed. 

 The existing cattle of Fifeshire, however, do not really con- 

 stitute a breed or family. They are rather a mixture of 

 breeds, the members of which are not so amalgamated with 

 one another as to present a uniform class of characters. They 

 vary greatly in size, aspect, and shape. Some have horns, 

 and some are destitute of horns ; and, for the most part, they 

 are of coarse angular forms. The prevailing colour is black, 

 or black mixed with white. They are hardy, and subsist well 

 on indifferent food, and the Cows are usually good milch ers. 

 Like all the races of the lower country termed home-breds, 

 they are slow in arriving at maturity, but the muscular sub- 

 stance is well mixed with the fatty ; and as they produce 

 a good proportion of internal fat, they are valued by th'e 

 butchers in the markets to which they are carried. The 

 mixture of races which exists in Fifeshire, is to be ascribed 

 in part to the locality of the district, intermediate between 

 the northern and southern divisions of Scotland, and in part 

 to the condition of its agriculture up to a recent period. On 

 the west and north-west, it lies in contact with a tract of 

 country in which numbers of a kind of home-breds are rear- 

 ed, and of which there has been long an influx into the richer 

 parts of Fifeshire, for the purpose of being grazed. On the 

 north, again, the country is only separated by the Frith of 



