268 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



parts, the neck particularly ; but as a whole the breed 

 would have continued to be what it is now — white, 

 with black points. 



My reason for believing so is, first, that for hundreds 

 of years, when wild, both in England and in Scotland, 

 this breed of cattle did, when it could not be subjected 

 to selection of any kind, maintain completely the same 

 uniformity of colour which it now possesses ; and 

 secondly, so also do those semi-wild Continental races 

 which most nearly approximate to its type. There may 

 be some slight differences of the black markings, but in 

 all the great characteristic — the all-prevailing colour — 

 is white. 



I cannot but think that the Somerford Park herd 

 remarkably corroborates this view. If the experiment, 

 to which Professor Low and Mr. Darwin have alluded, 

 has not been tried fully there, it has at least been tried 

 to a great extent. An increased amount of black mark- 

 ings has been approved and fostered; and, of course, a 

 tendency to black spots on the head, neck, and sides, 

 which in many places would be suppressed, here show 

 themselves ; yet they amount to nothing more, after all, 

 than a full development of certain hereditary and 

 secondary markings, such as many Continental races 

 show. The marked and primary colour is white, some- 

 times with these omnipresent black points somewhat 

 more prominently shown than in herds where it has 

 long been the practice to endeavour to obliterate 

 them. Sometimes, as in the case of several of the 

 cows, of the bull, and of the young cow^calf I saw, the 

 white is unadulterated with any black, save what is 

 common to all these ancient herds ; and it is still more 

 curious that at Somerford, where exceptional black 



