1 Sepr., 1897.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 215 
inhabitants of Spain and Britain were engaged in cattle-rearing pursuits lone 
before the advent of the Pheenician colonists on their coasts, and that the 
possibility of a profitable trade in stud stock existed. 
It seems only reasonable to infer that the Phoonicians, who were a trading 
nation developing markets wherever they touched in their long intercourse 
with such countries as Spain and Britain, which they found settled with a 
people subsisting by means of their cattle, would, apart from their own 
requirements for sacrifice, have fostered and developed a trade with’ the cattle- 
owners of these countries in stud stock from the scientifically bred herds of 
Egypt and Bashan. 
All the evidences of the British cattle herds of the present day go to show 
that something of this kind has taken place. We find that the cattle belonging 
to the descendants of ancient Britain have most marked and peculiar 
characteristics which they hold in common (however varied breeds so different 
as the Jersey, Devon, Kyloe, or Galloway may be), distinctly pointing to the 
fact that they have sprung from a source other than the original cattle of the 
Norse and Saxon varieties, well represented to-day by the Shorthorn and 
Ayrshire herds. 
One characteristic peculiar to the Celtic cattle is that they are whole 
coloured, generally red or black, dun or mouse coloured, whilst brindles are 
frequently met with, and it is quite a common thing for black and red animals 
to alternate in a herd. 
In our time we find the reversion to black, which the Egyptian breeders 
had to contend against when raising a red herd, being fostered and developed 
by the owners of several herds, and this to such an extent that the red-coloured 
animals have been quite eliminated from their herds. 
Another characteristic common to Celtic cattle is the peculiar marbling of 
their meat. This is not a quality of the Saxon cattle, as represented by the 
Shorthorn or Ayrshire. It is the marbling of the fat through the lean meat of 
the Celtic cattle that enhances its value, and causes it to realise top prices in 
the London market, whether it has been supplied from a Devon in the south of 
England or a Kyloe in the north of Scotland. Another distinctive feature is 
the quality of their meat. It did not need the development of the Babcock 
tester to demonstrate that the milk of the Jersey, Devon, Kyloe, or other 
Celtic breeds were rich in butter fats. 
The Saxon herds are simply not in the show with them. Recently, in 
Scotland, a breeder of Celtic cattle bought some Ayrshires to supply the usual 
ration of milk for his ploughmen. Accustomed as they had been to the richer 
milk of the black Celtic cattle, the poorer milk of the Ayrshire was unpalatable 
to them, and caused friction and dissatisfaction. In the early days of New 
South Wales, a herd of cattle had been established which would have been of 
great value to Australia under the present uspect and promise of the dairying 
and meat industries. Where they came from, and how were they bred, would 
be interesting information of a most profitable nature, if it could be obtained. 
They were of a mouse or dun colour, soft to handle, as large framed as the 
Durhams running with them, their meat was marbled, and they gave a great 
yield of rich milk. As milkers they would have realised £10 per head more 
than Ayrshire cows in the cattle markets of Scotland. Normanby Station, 
near Ipswich, when first formed, was stocked with them, and late in the sixties 
they still formed part of the stock on that station, but the craze for Durhams 
had long before set in, and the spaying knife was freely used, with the result 
that a breed of cattle superior to the Durham for meat, and better than the 
Ayrshire for milk, was eventually wiped out. : ; 
The first settlers around Dunedin, New Zealand, had also obtained some » 
of this breed of cattle from New South Wales, and the settlers of those early 
times, after the lapse of half-a-century, were still full of their praise as a valuable 
general purpose breed of cattle, and were fond of relating the high estimate 
the more recent settlers of the late fifties had of their milking capabilities, and 
the prices the old settlers found they could get for such as they had for sale. 
