92 CATTLE. Chap . „ l 



skin and the hair is likewise certain : thus Eoulin asserts 69 that 

 the hides of the feral cattle on the hot Llanos " are always much 

 less heavy than those of the cattle raised on the high platform of 

 Bogota; and that these hides yield in weight and in thickness 

 of hair to those of the cattle which have run wild on the lofty 

 Paramos." The same difference has been observed in the hides 

 of the cattle reared on the bleak Falkland Islands and on the 

 temperate Pampas. Low has remarked 70 that the cattle which 

 inhabit the more humid parts of Britain have longer hair and 

 thicker skins than other British cattle ; and the hair and horns 

 are so closely related to each other, that, as we shall see in 

 a future chapter, they are apt to vary together; thus climate 

 might indirectly affect, through the skin, the form and size of 

 the horns. When we compare highly-improved stall-fed cattle 

 with the wilder breeds, or compare mountain and lowland breeds, 

 we cannot doubt that an active life, leading to the free us*e of 

 the limbs and lungs, affects the shape and proportions of the 

 whole body. It is probable that some breeds, such as the semi- 

 monstrous niata cattle, and some peculiarities, such as being 

 hornless, &c, have appeared suddenly from what we may 

 call a spontaneous variation ; but even in this case a rude 

 kind of selection is necessary, and the animals thus charac- 

 terized must be at least partially separated from others. This 

 degree of care, however, has sometimes been taken even in 

 little-civilized districts, where we should least have expected 

 it, as in the case of the niata, chivo, and hornless cattle in 

 S. America. 



That methodical selection has done wonders within a recent 

 period in modifying our cattle, no one doubts. During the 

 process of methodical selection it has occasionally happened that 

 deviations of structure, more strongly pronounced than mere 

 individual differences, yet by no means deserving to be called 

 monstrosities, have been taken advantage of: thus the famous 

 Long-horn Bull, Shakespeare, though of the pure Canley 

 stock, "scarcely inherited a single point of the long-horned 

 breed, his horns excepted; 71 yet in the hands of Mr. Fowler, 



69 ' Mem. de l'lnstitut present, par n Youatt on Cattle, p. 193. A full 



divers Savans,' torn, vi., 1835, p. 332. account of this bull is taken from 



'° Idem, pp. 304, 368, &c. Marshall. 



