DISTRIBUTION OF POLLED CATTLE. 17 



ities in races of stock " has sometimes been taken even in 

 little-civilised districts, where we should least have ex- 

 pected it, as in the case of the niata, chivo, and hornless 

 cattle in South America." These facts indicate that in the 

 earliest historic times selection in the breeding of cattle 

 had been practised with considerable skill. Along with 

 other known circumstances, they also seem to justify the 

 conclusion that almost ever since cattle were thoroughly 

 domesticated and fitted for the uses of man, they have 

 been submitted to some kind of selection, perhaps in 

 remote ages more rude than skilled, but still sufficient to 

 stamp with permanency such an exceptional character as 

 the absence of horns. 



Polled varieties of cattle have been more widely spread 

 than is generally supposed. No traces have been dis- 

 covered of the existence of any polled cattle prior to the 

 historic era although, as we have already remarked, an 

 occasional hornless animal may even then have appeared. 

 Then, as far as we are aware, no reference to polled cattle 

 is made by any of the early writers excepting Herodotus, 

 who describes the domestic cattle of the Scythians as hav- 

 ing been hornless. But passing to more recent times, say 

 within the past two hundred years, we gather from suffi- 

 ciently reliable evidence that, in the British Isles and 

 elsewhere, a great many varieties of polled cattle have 

 existed. A number of these varieties have disappeared, but 

 several still survive. It is known that on the estate of 

 Prince Leichtenstein in Austria a herd of red polled cattle 

 has been in existence from time immemorial ; and we are 

 told by Darwin that in Paraguay in South America a 

 variety of hornless cattle originated little more than a 

 hundred years ago. The latter case Darwin, in his com- 

 munication to us, mentions as the only instance he had 

 ever come across in which the origin and formation of a 

 polled race were fully known. In his work on ' Animals 

 and Plants under Domestication/ he states (and he takes 



B 



