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CATTLE 



cheese. It has been assumed that these cattle are descended from 

 the prehistoric Giant Ox (Bos taurus primigenius). Early writings 

 refer to Dutch cattle as being large, more or less white in color, 

 and great milk producers. Tacitus, the Roman writer, states that 

 in the year a. d. 28, Drusus, the father of Germanicus, imposed 

 a tax of hides of oxen upon the Friesians, which hides should 

 come up to a certain standard. Tacitus, says Storer,i implies that 

 this was a difficult matter and very burdensome to the Friesians, 

 but the passage clearly shows that the cattle of Friesland were then 



of great size. During 

 the course of time there 

 have undoubtedly been 

 considerable changes 

 inthecattleof Holland. 

 Different authorities 

 bring this out. These 

 changes were due to 

 crossing varieties or 

 breeds and to great 

 epidemics. Storer com- 

 ments on the fact that 

 in the numerous paint- 

 ings of cattle in the 

 Dutch and Belgian art 

 galleries, made by such 

 noted artists as Paul Potter, Rubens, Cuyp, Teniers, Vandevelde, 

 and others, " the Dutch cow of from 200 to 300 years since was 

 totally different, both in color and form, from what she is now." 

 The author has been much interested in examining many of 

 these paintings in European galleries and can indorse the state- 

 ment by Storer that black cattle are rare, black and white are 

 still more rare, mouse-colored ones are not uncommon, neither 

 are white ones with red ears ; reds of different shades, with some 

 white, are quite common, while the familiar red body and white 

 face of the Hereford is not uncommon. The picture of Paul 

 Potter's bull (see page 253) at The Hague brings out strikingly 

 these color features. In the early part of the nineteenth century 



1 Reverend John Storer, Wild White Cattle of Great Britain (n. d.), p. 33. 

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Ftc;. 151. Dutch farmhouse with stable on the right. 

 Photographed near Leeuwarden by the author 



