I SB 
THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE OX. 
every country, and it is only within the last century that any at- 
tention has been directed to preserve them in their native dis- 
tricts. In our own country we find a variety in almost every 
county, the consequence partly of crossing with foreign varieties, 
and the colour of these different breeds is now regarded as an 
important distinction in their different localities, as being, in fact, 
the characteristic attribute of the various races. 
Thus the old Hereford breed of cattle were chiefly brown 
or red , like the North Devons, and were probably descended 
from the same race. It is not more than half a century since 
the white faces have been introduced. About the year 1796, 
Mr. Benjamin Tonking, on his marriage with his master’s 
daughter, became possessor of two cows that shewed an ex- 
traordinary tendency to fatten. The one, having a plenty of 
white marks, he called Pigeon; the other, of a rich red colour, 
with a spotted face, he called Mottle ; and it is a remarkable 
fact, that the markings of those two cows may be distinguished 
in their descendants at the present day. 
In the early stage of his improvements he made use of the 
best bulls he could obtain in his own neighbourhood ; but after- 
wards he confined himself in breeding to his own stock. It 
thus appears, that the principles of his system were the selection 
of the most valuable individuals for breeding, and that, having 
produced by these means animals of the properties required, he 
confined himself to his own herd, and then, by intermixture one 
with another, he obtained that uniformity of character which 
constitutes a breed. Since this period Herefordshire has been 
a breeding country, and may well boast of possessing one of the 
finest breeds in Britain. 
The peculiar colour of this breed has been supposed by some 
to be owing to peculiarity of soil — the old red sandstone; but the 
soil has nothing to do with the colour of the hair, although it 
has principally to do with size and quality. The polled Angus 
breed, of a black colour, are situated on the old red sandstone 
which forms the plains and less elevated parts of Forfar and 
Kincardine. And again, the Galloway breed, which are also 
black and polled animals, and by some persons supposed to be 
of the same origin as the Angus, are situated on the Greywacke 
hills, which stretch from St. Abb’s Head, on the east coast, to the 
North Irish Channel. We have also another example in the 
Devon and Sussex breeds, both approximating in colour and 
other qualities ; yet the former inhabiting a soil in the Grey- 
wacke series, and the latter residing on the wealden , a formation 
that has acquired much celebrity on account of the organic re- 
mains found there. 
