142 
THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
Oxen were used for ploughing, for treading out corn, 
for draught purposes, when they were generally 
yoked in pairs, and as beasts of burden. Their flesh 
was eaten, they were used in the sacrifices, and the 
cows supplied milk, butter, etc. 
" It seems clear from Proverbs, chap. xv. v. 17, and 
I Kings, chap. iv. v. 23, that cattle were sometimes 
stall-fed, though this was probably not the rule. 
Humped cattle, or zebu, were kept in Syria, where 
there were also breeds of ordinary humpless cattle, 
one of which was ' polled,' or hornless. The long- 
horned humpless cattle of ancient Egypt have been 
referred to a distinct species by myself under the 
name of Bos cEgyptiacus. The domesticated Indian 
buffalo, now commonly used in Syria and Palestine 
for ploughing, etc., appears to have been unknown 
there in early Biblical times." 
These cattle doubtless belonged to the aforesaid 
partly humped and partly humpless nondescript 
breeds of Syria generally. 
Leaving the cattle of Europe and the eastern and 
southern Mediterranean countries, attention may be 
directed for a short space to the humpless breeds 
which have been introduced from Europe into various 
parts of the world, where they have reverted, in greater 
or less degree, to a semi-wild condition ; and likewise 
to an altogether peculiar South American breed. 
In his Histoire Naturelle des Quadrupeds de Para- 
guay,^ published in Paris in 1801, Don Felix d'Azara 
stated that at that time there were half-wild cattle on 
the pampas which had assumed a nearly uniform 
brown colour; and Darwin ^ quotes the Times of 
^ Vol. ii. p. 361. 
2 Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. i. p. 89. 
