The Evolution of the British Breeds of Cattle. 
563 
ficial purposes, and, having down to the middle ages a greater 
market value they were kept apart. It is probable that all important 
establishments, whether ecclesiastical or feudal, had their own herd, 
which was kept within enclosures. Perhaps some of their de- 
scendants remain at Chillingham and, with a stronger German cross, 
at Chartley, The form of the Urus is well known, and so is that of 
the Chillingham breed, but there is little resemblance between 
them ; while, in form, the Chillingham and the Highland cattle can 
hardly be distinguished. 
From the Celtic Shorthorn and the cattle introduced by the 
Romans came all our earlier breeds. Then followed the time after 
the Roman legionaries had been withdrawn, when smaller or 
larger bands of Saxons, of Angles, J utes, and Danes, arriving from 
time to time, kept the country in such an unsettled state that 
cattle breeding was impossible, and the country was unsafe for any 
but those who lived in strongholds. The herds roamed over wide 
tracts of country, and as there was no selection, there was, of 
coui'se, a reversion to the numerically predominating native type. 
So among the hundreds of horn-cores found associated with medi- 
aeval remains in the eleventh- and thirteenth-century ditches round 
Cambridge we notice very little deviation from the form of Bos 
longifrons. In the refuse of Roman or early mediaeval age we find 
no remains of longhorned cattle. But in later mediaeval times 
large cattle were introduced from the Low Countries, and soon 
modified the stock in all the southern and eastern counties, being 
crossed with the native breeds, which had retained in one place more 
of the type of the Celtic Shorthorn, and in another more of the 
character of the Roman breed. The specimens of the horn-cores 
of longhorn cattle which were exhibited were given to me by Mr. 
Francis C. A. Barclay, who procured them from a drain, which was 
inferred to have been made about 200 years ago on his father’s 
property at Forest House, near Epping Forest. 
What the origin of the German Longhorns was, and whether 
we can find traces of Bos frontosus being brought in by the 
Scandinavian invaders, would take us beyond the scope of our pre- 
sent inquiry. 
The conclusions arrived at, briefly stated, 1 differ from those 
usually received, in that it is considered as proved that the Urus is 
not the progenitor of any of the native breeds ; that the White 
Park cattle are not a true breed, and not derived from any native 
wild breed ; that the influence of the Roman introduced cattle was 
considerable ; that the real basis of our English cattle is to be found 
in the Celtic Shorthorn, which was first modified by the Roman 
cattle with upturned horn ; then after mediaeval reversion to the 
longifrons type, of different extent in different districts, was again 
modified by the introduction of German slouching Longhorns. 
T. McKenny Hughes. 
Cambridge. 
1 For fuller discussion of the question see Proo. Soc. Ant., London, 
June 14, 1894. 
