96 BRITISH QUADRUPEDS. 



domestic ox, and thrived as well as any short-horned 

 steer could do ; and in its prime, was computed to 

 weigh sixty-five stones. They are shy in summer, but 

 tame in winter, and will eat from a fold, although they 

 will not taste turnips. When one of the herd becomes 

 weak or feeble, the rest sometimes set upon it, and gore 

 it to death. At the end of the last century, similar 

 cattle existed at Burton Constable, Yorkshire, and at 

 Dunlary in Dumfrieshire, but these are now extinct. 

 From the absence of all recent notice of these animals, 

 there appears to be little doubt but that they are genu- 

 ine descendants of the wild cattle of the ancient Caledo- 

 nian forests. 



Britain, though surrounded by the ocean, has often 

 been overrun by ferocious invaders. As the people 

 retreated before their foes, they took with them, their 

 cattle, the chief part of their property. They did this 

 when they retired to the fortresses of North Devon and 

 Cornwall, or the mountains of Wales, or when they 

 sought shelter in the wealds of Sussex, and there they 

 were anxious to preserve these animals. The ancient 

 breed thus sustained, experienced some change, parti- 

 cularly in bulk, from difference of climate. In Devon, 

 Sussex, Wales, and Scotland, the cattle have been the 

 same from time immemorial ; while on the eastern coast, 



