6 ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC CATTLE. 



just described in detail, are generally regarded as speci- 

 fically distinct. It is not denied that the Bos urus and 

 Bos longifrons, as well as the existing races of non-humped 

 cattle, all come within the one generic or rather sub- 

 generic distinction, the Bos taurus. Naturalists, however, 

 as we have seen, have arranged the ancient varieties of 

 humpless cattle into two main species or types, the Bos 

 urus and the Bos longifrons ; and while they would seem 

 to agree that these two species represent the sub-generic 

 division to which domesticated cattle belong, they have 

 been unable to arrive at anything like unanimity of opinion 

 as to which type or " species " has been perpetuated in 

 existing races, or as to whether both have been so pre- 

 served ; and, if both have been preserved, in what varieties 

 each type has its purest representatives. Some naturalists 

 tell us that our living races of domesticated cattle are pure 

 but modified descendants of the huge urus. Others claim 

 the deer-like longifrons as the progenitors of existing races. 

 Perhaps the most generally accepted notion is, that existing 

 domesticated cattle are the intermixed descendants of the 

 two ancient types. 



Eiitimeyer gives it as his belief that some of the larger 

 domesticated races on the Continent and in England, as 

 well as t&e semi- wild cattle in Lord Tankerville's Park at 

 Chillin^kam, are the descendants of the urus. The Chil- 

 lingham cattle, he says, are less altered from the true urus 

 type than any other known breed. Cuvier, Bell, and 

 others, would seem to go the length of believing that our 

 entire stock of living cattle are " the degenerate descendants 

 of the great urus." Nilsson considers that the existing 

 races of cattle may probably have been derived from the 

 Bos urus, the Bos longifrons, and the Bos frontosus. Boyd 

 Dawkins and Darwin are of opinion and the one quotes 

 the other to this effect that " European cattle are de- 

 scended from two species" namely, the urus and the 

 longifrons. In his interesting work on ' The Wild White 



