THE LONG-HORNED BREED. 369 



countries, and to have disappeared, or lost its distinctive 

 characters, in the eastern and drier; and hence it seerns 

 reasonable to infer, that it owed the characters which dis- 

 tinguished it to the influence of climate. Yet in the west of 

 Ireland, in the moistest climate of Europe, and spread exten- 

 sively over the whole country, there is a race, the Kerry, 

 which differs, in almost every respect that constitutes a 

 breed, from the Long-horns. The Wild White Forest Breed, 

 though reared for ages in parks in the west of England and 

 Scotland, never assumes the characters of the Long-horned 

 race. The North Devon, and all the native cattle of the 

 humid mountains of Wales, are alike removed from it ; and 

 -in all the west of Scotland, in tracts exposed to the con- 

 tinued vapours of the Atlantic ocean, no trace of the charac- 

 ters distinctive of the Long-horned race presents itself. 

 The Kerry Breed, the Devon, the Welsh, and the Scotch 

 Highland, differ as much from the Long-horned as the white 

 man from the negro ; and the two classes retain their charac- 

 ters distinct, though naturalized in the same tract of country, 

 beyond all records. The influence of climate alone, then, 

 does not satisfactorily account for the formation of breeds, 

 which, naturalized under conditions apparently similar, differ 

 so greatly from one another ; and we are rather conducted 

 to the inference, that races so unlike were derived from dis- 

 tinct sources. But if the Kerry and other breeds inhabit- 

 ing the country have been derived from natural stocks dis- 

 tinct from the Long-horned, all the traces of their naturali- 

 zation have been lost in the obscurity of time. 



The Long-horned Breed, as it existed before the artificial 

 improvements to which it has been subjected, varied in size 

 with the natural and acquired fertility of the districts to 

 which it had become indigenous, being larger in the richer 

 plains, and smaller in the mountains. The prevailing colour 

 of the animals was black and brown, and they had more or 

 less of white on the body, a streak of that colour always 

 extending along the spine. They had thick dark skins, and 



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