CHAPTER II. 



NEAT CATTLE THEIR HISTORY. 



The genus Bos, as a domesticated animal, has lieen the use- 

 ful and cherished companion of man from the earliest date 

 of history, either sacred or profane. That they were highly 

 valued iu days most ancient, we may know, from their being 

 objects of labor, sacrifice, and worship, by different nations and 

 people. They were esteemed articles of wealth, and sources of 

 prosperity, and were probably cared for and cultivated with 

 equal soUcitude as any other domestic animal attached to 

 liusbandry, or of use as food. What was their normal condition 

 as to race or breed, as we understand races and breeds, httle or 

 nothing is known, nor is it necessary that we do know. That 

 they were then, in their chief essentials, as now, we have no 

 reason to doubt; and that they may have been improved, or 

 that they deteriorated in condition as civilization progressed, or 

 waned, with the people who heldx them in subjection, we have 

 httle reason to question. The hieroglyphics of Egypt, most 

 ancient in date, rude as were all their representations of man' 

 things, and animals, give us no accurate hkeness of what they 

 might have been among that ingenious and wonderfal people, 

 and they were probably as highly cultivated among them as any 

 where else in cotemporary times. The earliest representations 

 or pictures we have, give them rugged forms, enormous length of 

 upright, or spreading horns, and gaunt appearance. The 

 chmates of the East permitted them to live throughout the year 

 in the open air, and we may well suppose that nature supplied 



