68 
Academy that in the year 1840 I presented to the Museum, and de- 
scribed in the ‘‘ Proceedings,” a large quantity of animal remains which 
had been discovered in the great crannoge of Lagore, near Dunshaughlin, 
county of Meath—the first of those curious marsh or lake-fortresses 
which have been discovered during the last twenty years. The most 
remarkable, as well as the most numerous, specimens amongst that vast 
collection, amounting to hundreds of cart-loads, were the remains of 
horned cattle. With these were found the largest, the most varied, and 
J think I am justified in saying, the most valuable, collection of antiqui- 
ties, viewed from an ethnological poit of view, which has ever been 
found in Ireland, of which a large number now adorn our Museum, and 
serve to fix the range of date of that crannoge and its osseous contents, 
yiz., from A. D. 848 to 983. Since then many other crannoges have 
been brought to light during the progress of the arterial drainage in dif- 
ferent parts of the country, as set forth in the ‘‘ Catalogue of the Anti- 
quities of Vegetable Material.’”’ From these localities, as well as in deep 
cuttings also made for the same purpose, and in peat bogs, particularly 
in the counties of Roscommon, Westmeath, Tyrone, Longford, and Fer- 
managh; from Loughgur, in the county of Limerick; and in the artificial 
embankments, as well as in some of the subterranean passages of ancient 
raths—other specimens of bovine remains have been deposited in the 
Museum by the Board of Works, and by private donors. Several of the » 
specimens which I described in 1840 were subsequently figured in Mr. 
and Mrs. Hall’s beautiful work on Ireland. I have selected twenty heads 
of ancient oxen belonging to the Academy’s and my own collections, 
and arranged them in four rows, each row characteristic of a peculiar 
race or breed, viz., the straight-horned, the curved or middle-horned, 
the short-horned, and the hornless, or maol, all of which existed im Ire- 
land in the early period to which I have already alluded. Can we now 
identify any of those old heads with those belonging to our native races 
of the present century? Before that question is discussed it is neces- 
sary to say something on the subject of the native cattle of Ireland, ere 
they became replaced or altered by the old Ayrshires or Durhams, or the 
more recent improved breeds introduced by Bakewell, Colling, and 
others. 
According to my own observations, we possessed four native breeds 
about twenty-five years ago. First, the old Irish cow, of small stature, 
long in the back, and with moderate-sized, wide-spreading, slightly ele- 
vated, and projecting horns: they could scarcely be called long-horned, 
and they certainly were not short-horned. This breed was of all colours, 
but principally black and red. They were famous milkers, easily fed, 
extraordinarily gentle, requiring little care, and were, in truth, the poor 
man’s cow,—the ‘‘ ould Irish stock,” the true Drimin dhu Dheelish; but 
they did not easily fatten, and when beyond a certain age seldom put up 
flesh. They abounded in all parts of the plain country. Second, the 
Kerry, which is somewhat more of a middle horn. In its native state 
it is usually much smaller than the former ; in colour it is either red, 
