THE LONG-HORNEI) BREED 
PLATE XVIII. 
BULL, 4 years old, bred by Thomas Wyatt, Esq. of Hanwell Castle, Oxfordshire; by a Bull bred by 
Mr Smith of Snitterfield, in the county of Warwick. 
The term Long-horned, when applied to a variety of British cattle, denotes not only a simple character of the horns, namely, 
their extension or length, but a certain similarity in the external form of the animals which united a great proportion of the older 
cattle of the country into what might be termed a breed. Length and grossness of horns may be supposed to be connected, in 
certain circumstances, with the nature of the pastures and the humidity of the climate. A moist climate tends to produce thick¬ 
ness of skin and length of hair; and the corneous system is so connected with the cuticular, that it is reasonable to believe that 
what affects the skin and its covering may exercise an action on the parts connected with them. The true Long-horns seem 
to have been the inhabitants of the western parts of the British Islands. They extended over nearly all the plains of Ireland, 
and the greater part of the mountains, and yet form the prevailing race of that country. In England, they occupied Lancashire, 
extending northward into Cumberland and Westmoreland, and southward through Cheshire and Shropshire, to the districts 
on the Severn, and even into Somersetshire, where the traces of them still exist in the higher country. From the mouth of 
the Severn they extended inland through the midland counties even to Leicestershire. They were found, and are yet reared, in 
Derbyshire, and partially occupied, and still occupy, the bleak range of heathy hills which extend from that county northwards, 
and which divide the more westerly and humid country on the Atlantic from the eastern and drier on the German ocean. But, 
on the eastern slope of this range of hills, they gradually diminished in numbers, until the traces of them were lost; and they 
were not found within the period of any records in the south-eastern counties of the Chalk. Although they had stretched through 
the midland counties as far to the eastward as Leicestershire, yet as they extended eastward their characters appear to have un¬ 
dergone a progressive change ; for although Leicestershire became in time the centre of a highly cultivated breed of Long-horns, 
the older cattle which possessed it seem either to have been a mixed race, or to have deviated greatly from the type of the true 
Long-horns of the western counties. Thus the Long-horned Breed appears to have been derived from the western and more hu¬ 
mid countries, and to have disappeared, or lost its distinctive characters, in the eastern and drier; and hence it seems reasonable 
to infer, that it owed the characters which distinguished it to the influence of climate. Yet in the west of Ireland, in the moistest 
climate of Europe, and spread extensively over the whole country, there is a race, the Kerry, which differs, in almost every re¬ 
spect that constitutes a breed, from the Long-horns. The wild White Forest Breed, though reared for ages in parks in the west 
of England and Scotland, never assumes the characters of the Long-horned race. The North Devon, and all the native cattle of 
the humid mountains of Wales, are alike removed from it; and in all the west of Scotland, in tracts exposed to the continued 
vapours of the Atlantic ocean, no trace of the characters distinctive of the Long-horned race presents itself. The Kerry Breed, 
the Devon, the Welsh, and the Scotch Highland, differ as much from the Long-horned as the white man from the negro ; and the 
two classes retain their characters distinct, though naturalized in the same tract of country beyond all records. The influence of 
climate alone, then, does not satisfactorily account for the formation of breeds, which, naturalized under conditions apparently simi¬ 
lar, differ so greatly from one another; and we are rather conducted to the inference, that races so unlike were derived from dis¬ 
tinct sources. But if the Kerry and other breeds inhabiting the country have been derived from natural stocks distinct from the 
Long-horned, all the traces of their naturalization have been lost in the obscurity of time. 
The Long-horned Breed, as it existed before the artificial improvements to which it has been subjected, varied in size with 
the natural and acquired fertility of the districts in which it had become indigenous, being larger in the richer plains, and smaller 
in the mountains. The prevailing colour of the animals was black and brown, and they had more or less of white on the body, a 
streak of that colour always extending along the spine. They had thick dark skins, and abundant hair. Their horns were 
long and bending downwards; a peculiarity, however, which seemed to give place to the influence of external agents, since, 
at the eastern and southern limits of the breed in England, their horns frequently turned upwards, in the manner of other cattle 
inhabiting these districts. Their bodies were long, their sides flat, and their shoulders heavy as compared with their hind quar¬ 
ters. They were hardy, capable of subsisting without shelter, and on indifferent food, but they were slow in arriving at maturity. 
Their flesh was of a dark colour, and the fat of a yellow tinge. They were of docile tempers, and steady in the yoke, though 
sluggish in their motions. They were with difficulty amalgamated with other varieties, retaining with greater obstinacy than any 
