54 THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 



verging on black, with long, black-tipped horns, and with 

 hair short and comparatively smooth, except on the forehead 

 where it was long and curly. 



One other character of the Urus is worth recording in 

 view of its modification in the domestic breeds derived from 

 this wild race namely, its temperament. Caesar said of 

 the Uri inhabiting the Hercynian forest of Central Europe 

 " Great is their strength and great their speed ; they spare 

 nor man nor wild beast on whom they may cast their eyes." 



THE URUS AND DOMESTICATION 



Notwithstanding that man lived for many centuries in 

 Scotland in company with Wild Oxen, he seems to have 

 made little or no progress in domesticating them. This may 

 have been due in part to an exceptionally wild strain in 

 the Scottish race, and in part to the fact that there was 

 little inducement for him to break in a new race of cattle, 

 since he had brought with him to Scotland a smaller and 

 more amenable breed, the Short-horned Celtic Ox (Bos 

 taurus longifrons}, which had already been domesticated 

 on the continent. It is not surprising, therefore, that 

 kitchen-middens of Neolithic and later ages yield many 

 bones of the smaller domesticated breed, but afford little 

 evidence of the presence or domestication of the Urus, a 

 creature of the wilds and remote fastnesses. Unfortunately, 

 however, in the majority of the early excavations, examina- 

 tion of the animal remains was of a more or less cursory 

 nature, bovine bones being simply recorded as "oxen," with- 

 out attempt to arrive at a critical estimation of their further 

 significance. 



It seems very unlikely that two closely related races of 

 cattle could exist in the limited area of Scotland without 

 a certain infusion of wild blood into the domesticated stock; 

 and it is just possible that some of the larger ox remains 

 found along with the bones of the Short-horned Celtic Ox 

 in the Roman .Camp at Newstead as well as in other Roman 

 settlements, and the few Urus-like skulls of the brochs, may 

 represent more or less remote descendants of crosses between 

 the Urus and the Celtic Shorthorn. It is possible also that 

 the sixteenth century "wild" White Cattle of the Caledonian 



