86 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
muzzles, the same might well have been the case 
with the old British breeds ; but to this it may be 
replied that there is no evidence that the aforesaid 
island-cattle habitually produce black calves, as is 
so commonly the case with the British park-breeds. 
A few words are advisable in this place in con- 
nection with the fact that whereas the ears of the 
Chillingham cattle are now red, in former days they 
were generally black. Thus Thomas Bewick in his 
General History of Quadrupeds^ the first edition of 
which was published in 1790, stated that in his time 
a few of these cattle had black ears ; while we learn 
from another source that in 1692 black ears were 
in the ascendancy. The change, which, as Mr. 
Harting remarks, was probably brought about by 
selection, is a kind of retrograde evolution. For, 
as is demonstrated by the case of the Malay bantin, 
in which, as mentioned above, the cows and calves 
are red, while the old bulls are black, it is evident 
that black is what naturalists call a specialised type 
of colouring among cattle, whereas red is the 
primitive or original colour; and in passing from 
black to white, in the development of albinism, red 
might therefore be naturally expected to occur as 
an intermediate stage, although, as a rule, there is 
a sudden jump from black to white. In this con- 
nection it is noteworthy that in black-and-white 
cattle which are tending to complete albinism the 
ears retain the black longer than any other part, 
this being specially exemplified by individuals in 
which the black of the body has become broken up 
to a greater or less extent into a kind of bluish grey. 
Although the habits of the Chillingham cattle are 
described in so many works that repetition might 
