12 Seientific Proceedings, Roijal Duhliii Sncietij. 



Ml-. Hyuo, and otliers, possess coiisiclerable numbers of tlieni. Lord Farnham, 

 in Cavan, has a lierd of tlieni, and from what I have seen of this stock in 

 the nortli of Devonshire, wliere they are natives of Exmore, I am inclined 

 to think that they are the best cattle known, and had I anytliing to do with 

 mountain estates in the sonth of Ireland, I should strongly recommend them 

 for general use. ... As I have never seen tliem to the northward, I should 

 be afraid to introduce them into that part of the kingdom." 



Nor is it improbable tliat these were not the first cattle of the Devonshire 

 breed imported into Ireland. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 

 many English immigrants came to Kerry and "West Cork, and there is strong 

 evidence that they brought over red cattle with them. The immigrants 

 sailed chiefly from Bristol channel ports, and, unless they had driven them 

 enormous distances, could have brought none other than red cattle. 



The following statement, by the Duke of St. Albans,' a part of which has 

 been quoted already, is to tlie point : — " In a letter written in 1580, and 

 preserved in the Eecord Office among the Irish MSS., Sir Nicholas White, 

 Master of the Rolls in Ireland, says that Dingle harbour, in Kerry, was 

 known as ' Coon edaf dearg ' which, in Irish, means ' red ox haven.' White 

 says tliis name was owing to the first settlers wlio came from Cornwall and 

 brought cattle with them. The native cattle were black." 



Nor must it be forgotten that Strongbow's men came from the south- 

 west of England; that tliey probably imported cattle from that part— the 

 cattle there were red — and that the red race may have found its way west- 

 wards towards Kerry. 



The probability, therefore, that Dexter cattle are descended from black 

 Kerries and red cattle of Devon tyj)e is very higli ; and if further proof 

 were wanted, it can be found by getting a red Dexter cow side by side with 

 a led Devon. Tiie only difference between them is that the Devon cow 

 is now sliglitly larger : a matter that can be accounted for by the Devon 

 having been much better cared for and increased in size during the last 

 hundred years. Wakefield looked upon the Devon as a mountain — and 

 therefore a small — breed ; while one Irish writer, Rawson, in his Survey 

 of Kildare, 1807, writes that " the Devons are nothing better than what 

 the mountains of Ireland can produce with any little care." 



One of tlie problems of breeding Dexter cattle with success may be 

 solved by knowing tiiat the Dexter is a hybrid, and that the Kerry is one 

 of the parent races. That there is a serious problem in the matter was not 

 realized till after the establishment of the Kerry and Dexter Herd Booh, by 



1 Mistory of the heron Breed of Cattle, p. 21. 



