210 27th kepokt, bueeau or animal industry. 
Bos CHINENSIS. 
Swinhoe (1870) describes the small yellow cow of south China 
as combining the character of taurus and indicus. Blyth says it is a 
cross between the two. 
POLLED CATTLE, 
Calves without horns occasionally appear as spontaneous varia- 
tions in nearly all districts where cattle are kept. The cause of this 
variation has not yet been satisfactorily explained. Herodotus (500 
B. C.) speaks of the hornless condition of Scythian cattle, in what 
is now European Russia, as due to extreme cold which dwarfs the 
growth of horn. Warm, dry climates favor the growth of horns and 
hoofs. As previously noted. Brown Swiss cattle taken to the steppes 
of Hungary take on more and more the form of the horns of Hun- 
garian cattle even without crossing (Wilckens, 1876). But if cold 
is unfavorable to the growth of horn, how can we account for the 
horns of the musk ox (Ovibos)^ a near relative and an inhabitant 
of an extremely cold region ? In proportion to its size the musk ox 
has larger horns than most forms of Bos taurus. 
•Whether the polled condition is the result of progression or re- 
gression has given rise to much discussion. Diirst says the hornless 
cattle are the result of domestication. An intermediate stage is the 
fiaphorn " or movable horn. They are represented in Egyptian 
works of art. Aristotle knew of cattle with movable horns. Keller 
has seen them in many places in Africa within recent years. 
Flap-horned cattle and sometimes hornless cattle have rough pro- 
tuberances where the horns otherwise would be, and occasionally 
small horns may develop as the animal grows older. After many 
generations these bunches or scurrs disappear. So far experiment has 
not shown that the hornless condition can be hastened by dehorning. 
Diirst calls attention to the long horns on the old Egypt ion repre- 
sentations of the crooked-nosed goat. The modern representatives of 
this type are either polled or shorthorned. In the time of the 
Pharaohs, sheep were always horned. All of these instances he cites 
as a result of domestication. 
Arenander (1898) thinks the first cattle were without horns. A 
study of the geographical distribution of polled cattle in Europe 
shows them to be more numerous in northern latitudes, which can 
not be explained by artificial selection by man, for it is unlikely that 
among people of so many different tendencies the northern people 
should have alwaj^s chosen the polled breeds in preference to the 
horned and the southern people the reverse. We find also among 
many of the northern people w^ho have polled breeds, that the art 
of breeding is but little developed. As we go toward the north the 
proportion of cattle with white hair increases, which evidently is 
