By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



117 



amongst the larger animals, not only bears, wolves and beavers, 

 the red deer, the wild boar, and the elk ; but that also the large 

 horned cattle, known as " bos longifrons," abounded in this island 

 contemporaneously with its earliest inhabitants; 1 so that in addition 

 to the smaller species, there was no lack of noble game to tempt 

 the Celtic sportsman to the forest. 2 



Again, pasturage, 3 or feeding flocks and herds of tame animals, 

 was one of their earliest occupations. This was undoubtedly a 

 way of life, peculiarly agreeable to a people in a state of barbarism, 

 or but just emerging from the savage state ; because it requires no 

 great labour or industry, to which they have a supreme aversion : 

 and also because it gratifies their roaming unsettled disposition. 

 Accordingly amongst many tribes, their cattle formed their prin- 

 cipal means of subsistence, and even up to the time of their first 

 invasion by the Romans, were their only possessions. 4 It is sup- 

 posed that those who were so employed were called " Cangi " or 

 " Ceangi," 5 traces of whom may be found in many counties : they 

 would not confine themselves to one locality, but range about the 



1 Treatise on the Zoology of Ancieut Europe, by Alfred Newton, Esq., read 

 before the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1862. See also Zoologist 2345, 

 2381, 8187. Archaeological Journal, vol. vi., p. 34. 



2 We learn from Strabo (lib. iv., p. 200.) and Claudian that the Britons were 

 famous in those days for their breed of dogs ; " canes ad venandum aptissimi." 



Sir R. Hoare's Ancient Wilts, vol. i., p. 184. 

 Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. ii., chap. 6. 



3 Milton's History of England, vol. i., p. 13. 

 Hume's History of England, chap, i, 



Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. ii., p. 97, chap. v. 



4 Caesar says " pecorum magnus numerus," Bell: Gall : v., 12, 14. 

 Henry's History of Great Britain, i., 315, ii., v., 97. 



5 Spelman's villare Anglican, v. can. 

 Horsm: Brit: Rom: p. 31, 372. 

 Camden's Britannia, p. 83, 216, 436. 



Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. i., 3, p. 274. 

 "The prevalence of caste in very early times was entire and universal: thus 

 various castes existed amongst the Athenians, who derived their name from 

 their occupations (Herodotus, v., 66) and amongst the Egyptians (Herodotus ii., 

 164). See Note in Rawlinson's Herodotus, iii., 273, 274; also Genesis xliii., 32. 

 The ancient Persians too were divided into tribes or castes, as are the modern 

 Hindoos and other Eastern nations. [Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, 

 vol. ii., p. 7.] 



