063 
breed] instead of the Slugs of the Fens, the product could not 
have failed of being excellent.” When we remember how strongly 
ho advocated a similar cross between the Cattle of the two 
counties, which has since been cultivated with such excellent 
results, we cannot but regret that the opportunity of carrying out 
his suggestion has been lost. The modern Hackney Horse is, 
undoubtedly, the result of a mixture of Barb, old English, and 
Norfolk blood.* 
Mr. Lubbock remarks that Norfolk never possessed any distinct 
breed of “ Black Cattle.” This is quite true, but there long existed 
a race which Marshall t described in 1780 — 82 as “ a Hereford in 
miniature,” the favourite colour being a blood-red with a white or 
a mottled face, “the horns clean, middle-sized, and bent upward." 
They were a small, hardy, thriving race, fatting freely and maturing 
early. Towards the end of the last century this race was crossed 
with an equally valuable polled variety peculiar to the neighbouring 
county of Suffolk, the general colour of which was also blood-red, 
rod and white, or yellowish-cream, and the result, although 
Marshall feared that the native hardness of the Norfolk breed and 
their quality of fatting quickly at an early ago might be injured by 
the innovation, has been the now celebrated “ Bed-polled Cattle.” 
A little jealousy appears at first to have existed with respect to the 
honour of the origin of this breed, each county claiming to fasten 
its own cognomen upon the race ; but all difference has now been 
settled, and the breed is fully recognized, having its own ‘ Herd 
Book,’ as the Bed-polled Cattle, Youatt says, the old Norfolk 
Horned Cattle were undoubtedly supplanted or modified by the 
Galloways, either accidentally or by reason of their superior form 
and quality, retained by the farmers and naturalized in the county, 
and adds, “ to a certain degree he succeeded, and thus the Polled 
Cattle gradually gained upon the horned ones, and at length 
became so much more numerous and profitable than the old sorts, 
that they began to be regarded as the peculiar and native breed of 
the county. 
This is, however, pure guesswork on the part of Mr. l’'ouatt ; 
and Mr. Low (‘ Domesticated Animals of the British Isles ’), 
* See Introduction, vol. i., ‘ Hackney Stud Book.’ 
t ‘ Rural Economy of Norfolk’ (first edition), vol. i. p. 324. 
