18 ORIGIN OF POLLED RACES OF CATTLE. 



his information from Azara, the author of ' Des Quadrupeds 

 du Paraguay'), that amongst a horned race a polled bull 

 had been born in 1770, and that, having been preserved, 

 the animal founded a hornless breed. There are also 

 polled cattle in Norway ; while Dr Uno von Troil, writing 

 in 1772, says Iceland is " well provided with cattle which 

 are generally without horns." 



It is not necessary to state all that is known regarding 

 the many varieties of polled cattle that have at one time 

 or other existed in the British Isles. It will suffice to 

 mention where the more important have been found. 

 Several of the herds of semi-wild cattle which existed in 

 the parks around the seats of country gentlemen in Eng- 

 land and Scotland early in the present century, but which 

 have now, with two or three exceptions, wholly disappeared, 

 were destitute of horns. At Somerford Park, in Cheshire, 

 England, there has existed from time immemorial a pure 

 herd of white polled cattle. Writing of this herd in 1875, 

 the late Eev. John Storer said it then numbered twenty 

 head; that it was of great though unknown antiquity, 

 having been at Somerford Park for several hundred years ; 

 that it had undoubtedly been at first derived from the 

 wild herds of South Lancashire ; and that it had been long 

 domesticated, but was probably the best representative 

 extant of the hornless and tame variety of the original 

 wild white breed. The semi- wild herd "of unknown 

 origin but great antiquity " which was formerly kept at 

 Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, England, becoming ex- 

 tinct nearly sixty years ago, was without horns ; as also 

 were a similar herd at Whalley Abbey, Lancashire, which 

 is said to have been transferred to Gisburne Park, York- 

 shire, where it remained till about twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago; and another at Middleton Hall, Lancashire. 

 Dr Charles Leigh, in his work on the * Natural History of 

 Lancashire and the Peak of Derbyshire,' published in 1700, 

 mentions the Middleton Hall herd, and presumes that the 



