158 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Societ;/. 



now scattered throughout the country, but is found only in some numbers in 

 tlie vale of tlie Sliaunou. Tlie cattle are of a liglit brownish colour, and 

 destitute of horns, on wliich account tliey have been supposed to resemble the 

 Suffolk Duns. But tliey are superior in size to the Suffolk duns, equalling, 

 in this respect, tlie larger class of shorthorns."' 



From tlie description quoted it will be seen tliat all tliese cattle, living 

 chiefly in isolated pockets round the coasts of Britain till, at any rate, 

 the eighteenth century, resembled each other in at least three important 

 characters, viz. : — 



(«) They were liornless. 



[b] Tliey were either light dun or yellow or dun, which showed that 



tbeir more remote ancestors had been light dun : yellow having 

 been got by crossing with red cattle, and dun by crossing with black. 



(c) They were small, puny, short-legged, sickle-hocked, narrow-cliined, 



thin-fleshed, long-headed cattle, which were usually esteemed for 

 the dairy. Those in Yorkshire and Ireland were the only excep- 

 tions ill size ; but the cattle in both those districts had long been 

 crossed by larger and fleshier breeds of cattle. 

 And from these circumstances, as well as from the fact that they differed 

 entirely in the first two, if not also in the third, from other British cattle, 

 we can scarcely conclude otlierwise than that tliey were all of the one race. 



The date of the arrival of these hornless cattle in Britain can be fixed with 

 approximate accuracy. The absence of hornless remains of Eoman and 

 Saxon age^ in the districts inhabited by hornless cattle, and the maritime 

 position of tlie hornless cattle, show that, if they were brought in by the 

 Anglo-Saxons, it must have been at the close of their invasion ; while the 

 absence of any record or sign of tlie importation of hornless cattle since the 

 Norman Conquest places their arrival in England before 1066. It is possible 

 they may have been brouglit to Scotland at a later date. The Burghead 

 carvings suggest for their arrival in Morayshire a date falling within the 

 period of the Danish and Norse invasions ; and by the discovery of a number 

 of hornless skulls in a craiinoge near Dunshauglilin, about seventeen miles 

 north-west from Dublin — also a Danish centre — their arrival in Ireland 

 can be shown to have coincided with the Norse invasions. Hornless cattle 

 could not have been imported to Ireland from England till very late in 

 Anglo-Saxon times, for there were none to import ; and, since Sir William 



' " Domesticated Animals," p. 327. 



- See M":Kenny Hughes's Papei-, " On the more important Breeds of Cattle which have been 

 recognized in the British Isles in successive periods," published in Aichaologia, vol. It., pp. 125- 

 158, 1896. 



