78 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
convey to his countrymen an idea of the stupendous 
and formidable uri of the Hercynian forests." 
Later on, in the same work/ Owen, however, ob- 
served that if, in spite of his first statement, "it 
should still be contended that the natives of Britain, 
or any part of them, obtained their cattle by taming 
a primitive wild race, neither the bison nor the great 
urus are so likely to have furnished the source of their 
herds as the smaller primitive wild species, or original 
variety of Bos^ which is the subject of the present 
section." 
Still later he adds ^ that " in this field of conjecture 
the most probable one will be admitted to be that 
which points to the B. longifrons (the aforesaid 
smaller wild species or variety) as the species which 
would be domesticated by the aborigines of Britain 
before the Roman invasion." 
It has, however, been pointed out by Professor 
W. B. Dawkins^ that this so-called B, longifrons^ 
better known as the Celtic shorthorn, was not a wild 
species at all, but a domesticated breed dating from 
the later (Neolithic) Stone Age. 
" When, therefore," writes Professor Dawkins, " the 
Romans conquered Britain, there was no need of their 
importing cattle from Italy, for they found a breed 
used to the climate and to the half-wild life, which, 
in a country for the most part uncleared, must have 
been their lot. During the Roman occupation the 
animal was the staple meat of the country." 
Later on in the same paper Professor Dawkins 
expressed the opinion that the Celtic shorthorn was 
the progenitor of the modern small Welsh and Scotch 
^ P. 509. - Op. cit. p. 514. 
' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.^ London, vol. xxiii. p. 183, 1867. 
