va: QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL gouRNAL. [1 Sepz., 1897. 
Red Devon Cattle. 
Tur following very interesting remarks on the probable origin of the Red 
Devon Cattle has been handed me by Mr. James Moffatt, of Warrill Bank, 
and will, I am sure, prove an interesting contribution to the Queensland 
Agricultural Journal. 
P. R. Gorpon. 
The Devon herd of cattle have long been regarded as amongst the oldest 
domesticated herds of British cattle, and there is a theory or tradition that it 
originated in Cornwall. 
The researches and discoveries of Hgyptologists and other Eastern scholars 
go far to establish the fact that in all probability the Devon is a living 
representation and descendant of the red cattle which we find were raised with 
the aid of all the wisdom of the Egyptians upwards of 5,000 years ago, to use 
as sacrifices to the Sun Deities—the red colour being evidently symbolic, and 
considered not only most acceptable, but necessary for the propitiation of their 
gods. 
They were raised with great care ; those showing black hairs were rejected 
as unfit for sacrifice, and the names and portraits of individual animals of 
merits are to-day found inscribed on the monuments. Studying the portraits, 
we readily recognise their similarity to the Devon; it had many points of a 
good milker, but the low set-on of tail andrump would greatly reduce the total 
number of her points if judged for milking qualities by our modern system of 
point-judging. She is not formed in the square blocky lines of our modern 
beef-producing herds, but rather represents an animal which we would expect to 
die well, giving a good yield of caul fat, which may have been a consideration 
with the Egyptian priesthood, as we know it was, later, to the Jewish 
priesthood; and we have reason to believe that this eventuated in Amos, the 
herdsman of Yekoa’s time, producing an animal that was only profitable to the 
priests. Thisis evident from the fact that when Amos struck out asa reformer 
he, a herdsman first, could find no more opprobious nor descriptive term for the 
oppressors of the people than to style them ‘ Kine of Bashan”; to his mind 
they were alike unprofitable and inimical! to the wealth of the people. 
The Phoenicians long worked the tin-mines of Cornwall, and nothing is 
more natural and probable than that they, as sun-worshippers, would obtain 
cattle for their sacrifices that would satisfy the superstitions and ideas they held 
of the requirements of their gods. 
We know, from the writer of Deuteronomy, that Bashan, in close 
proximity to the Phoenician ports of Tyre and Sidon, was, in his day, famed for 
its supplies of animals for sacrifice—both sheep and cattle. And the writer of 
Numbers discloses to us the fact that the worshippers of the true God, at 
Jerusalem, could not rise above the superstition of the sun-worshipping nation 
surrounding them, and that, under the Mosaic law, a red animal without spot 
had to be provided for sacrifice. 
The’ Pheenicians have recorded the fact that they found the inhabitants of 
the tin islands (Britain) were clad in black cloaks and in tunics reaching to 
their feet, with girdles round the waist, and were bearded like goats ; that they 
walked with staves ; that they subsisted by means of their cattle, and for the 
most part led a wandering life. There exists also the mythical story of 
the great spoil of cattle taken by Hercules in Spain, clearly indicating that the 
