THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE OX. 
73 
mencement. If the breeder’s object be to perpetuate cats without 
tails, or a Lord Monboddo’s breed of men with tails, the surest 
method of accomplishing either of these praiseworthy objects 
would be, after having procured sire and dam with these peculiar 
characters, to continue breeding in the same blood as closely as 
possible. We have sufficient example of these in the different 
polled varieties of cattle. Neither clime or soil has had any thing 
to do in effecting the variety, being entirely accidental, and the 
direct consequence of fashion in breeding. About eighty years 
ago the greatest part of the Galloway breed were horned, and 
there were but a few polled ones among them ; since that period they 
have continually increased, in consequence of this variety having 
been found to attain a greater size and to be of a more docile dis- 
position, and the breeders have accordingly selected them for their 
breeding animals. Now and then a stunted horned animal is pro- 
duced ; but these are always slaughtered, and thus the occasional 
attempt of this variety to breed back is prevented. 
It is scarcely more than half a century ago when no fashion 
prevailed so much amongst cattle breeders as those with long horns. 
At that period the Dishley breed was considered the most valuable 
one in the kingdom, for neither the modern Hereford nor the im- 
proved short horns were called into existence ; whilst at the present 
time there does not exist, as I have been informed, a single cow or bull 
of this breed on the Dishley estate, where Bakewell’s experiments 
were instituted and executed at so much labour and expense. At 
the sale of this gentleman’s stock after his death, this breed fetched 
the most extraordinary prices, both males and females varying 
little from 200 guineas each either way. So much for fashion : 
for at the late exhibition of cattle at the Great Derby Meeting of 
the Royal Agricultural Society, the long-horned cattle had no dis- 
tinguishing place like the short horns, the Herefords, or the Devons, 
and could only compete with any breed or cross whatsoever. 
From some observations which I have lately made, I have rea- 
son to believe that early maturity, and that peculiar delicacy of 
temperament which Professor Low alludes to, is entirely the result 
of breeding from animals in a fattening condition. The history of 
the short horns and the improved Leicester sheep, both artificial 
breeds, will in some measure confirm this. 
The bull Hubback, the sire of the short-horned race, possessed 
that disposition of acquiring fat to such a degree, that he was only 
used as a bull for a short time, and his dam, in consequence of her 
extraordinary aptitude to acquire fat, never bred again. 
The quality of the flesh, hide, and hair of these animals, is 
supposed to have been seldom equalled. Petrarch, Bolingbroke, 
Favourite, and Comet, from the same stock, inherited the same 
