xii PREFACE. 



arranged. He had been in constant correspondence with 

 many persons in all parts of the country able to give 

 him more or less information since he wrote it, and this 

 might perhaps have induced him to extend and amplify 

 some portions of his narrative. At any rate he would 

 doubtless have submitted it to a complete and severe 

 revision. In particular, I may state that with regard to 

 the early history of the Urus he was much struck with 

 the fact, lately brought to his notice, that wild bulls, 

 presumably of this type, were hunted by early Assyrian 

 monarchs, as recorded in the series of Egyptian and 

 Assyrian documents called " Records of the Past ; " 

 and that various portraitures of these animals, upon 

 both bowls and wall-paintings, are preserved in the 

 British Museum. If he had lived to investigate this 

 subject, the results would have been given to the public. 

 The same remarks apply equally — perhaps with even 

 more force — to the concluding chapter. 



The account of the Hamilton herd was also left in- 

 complete, for the reason that the author was, up to the 

 time of his death, busily engaged in endeavouring to 

 obtain information with regard to the curious change 

 from horned (presumably, at least) to polled, and then 

 again from polled to horned, which this herd has under- 

 gone. I was, therefore, obliged to use for this book 

 an earlier narrative which Mr. Storer had left of this, as 

 of several other herds, incorporating with it a report 

 upon the cattle of this strain now existing, written by 

 Mr. Chandos-Pole-Gell. That of the Kilmory herd 

 seems complete, except that a similar report from the 

 same gentleman had not been incorporated with it. 



