DOMESTIC CATTLE. 147 



To such causes as these — resting, as we have 

 seen, on a bovine basis — may be traced nearly 

 all those redoubtable characteristics of the Goths 

 and the Huns which enabled them to overcome 

 the trained legions of Rome. 



Gibbon and Hodgkin may say what they like 

 as to the causes of the fall of the Roman empire : 

 1 venture to maintain that in this one particular 

 the natural historian can give a hint even to such 

 authorities on matters historical. It was the 

 restive ox which developed the cowboy, and it 

 was the cowboy of old who broke the power of 

 Rome. 



In this sense also it may perhaps be said that 

 the vigour of the Anglo-Saxon race is based 

 on a beef regimen ; although, through the later 

 centuries, it has doubtless been enhanced by 

 change of air and a liberal use of salt water. 



Before we turn from this carnal aspect of the 

 Bovidc'c, perhaps it may not be out of place to en- 

 deavour to track to their sources the vaunted 

 merits of ox-tail soup. Needless to say the ox 

 did not grow his extremity for this special, and 

 sapid, end — as is rumoured to have been the case 

 with the benevolent kangaroo. Primarily the glu- 

 tinous character of the ox's tail which so fits it for 



