136 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
Spanish and ancient Egyptian cattle differ from the 
breeds related to the aurochs in the shortness of their 
skulls, and certain features in the conformation and 
position of the eye-sockets. Too much importance 
must not, however, be assigned to these features, 
since Dr. Hilzheimer^ has shown that the so-called 
Franqueiro cattle of Brazil, which are known to be 
derived from the long-horned Spanish breed, show a 
tendency to revert to the long type of skull character- 
istic of the aurochs group. 
According to the researches of Professor Flinders 
Petrie and others,^ the colour of the ancient Egyptian 
long-horned breed, although in some cases wholly 
red or black, was generally light with dark spots or 
blotches, but occasionally the reverse of this, the 
under-parts being nearly always light. The light 
ground-colour was usually pure white and the spots 
either black or red, or a mixture of both colours. 
There were, however, all gradations in the ground- 
colour from very light brick-red to dark reddish 
brown. Or, again, the prevalent colour might be 
light yellow, with or without red or black spots. 
Rarely a reddish or blackish ground marked with 
light or red spots is met with. The markings were 
not only uniformly distributed over the body, but 
were sometimes broken up into small stars, streaks, 
and dots, thereby recalling the so-called "leopard- 
cattle" of Nubia and Damaraland, and thus afford- 
ing additional evidence of the zebu ancestry of the 
cattle of Pharaonic times. Another zebu-like 
feature of the breed is the large development of the 
dewlap. These long-horned cattle are believed to 
^ Die italietiischeii Haustiere^ op. cit. 
2 Vide DUrst, op. cit. p. 41. 
