CATTLE. 735 
CAT’S TAIL GRASS. See Puieum. 
CATTLE. Animals of the domestic ox species. 
Our articles Bunt, Cow, and Ox, give general 
views of respectively the male, the female, and 
the castrated male of the domestic ox; our arti- 
cles Brerpine and Crosstne discuss the artificial 
methods of improving the form, size, and habits of 
cattle; and our articles Frrpine, Farrenine, 
Grass- Lanps, Pasturn, and Farm-Yarp, show 
how they ought to be reared, fed, lodged, and 
generally treated. In the present article, there- 
fore, we shall merely notice the characteristics 
and the several breeds of British cattle. 
The Different Breeds of Cattle—The diversities 
observable in the size, shape, habits and produce 
of the cattle of Great Britain and Ireland, have 
arisen partly from modern artificial breeding, but 
chiefly from the prolonged and combined influ- 
ence of climate, soil, pasturage, and general treat- 
ment. So long ‘as cattle were allowed their na- 
tural liberty, unrestrained and unmodified by en- 
closures, cultivation, and artificial treatment, all 
were clean-made, glossy, swift-footed, shy, spirit- 
ed, and active ; but when they became completely 
subject to the control of man, and dependent on 
him for food and protection, they lost their saga- 
city and energy; such as were amply supplied 
with nutritive food became plethoric, bulky, and 
sluggish; and such as were ill-fed continued 
small in size, and acquired bad shapes, and lean, 
feeble, unproductive habits. Comparatively few 
| of them migrate from district to district, or un- 
dergo changes of climate, pasturage, and arti- 
ficial treatment ; but most are reared and fed for 
generations in the same district, and many on the 
same estate or farm; and they consequently re- 
tain for ages an uniformity, or at the utmost a 
very limited diversity, of size, shape, and consti- 
tutional qualities. Hence, particular breeds were 
formed and fixed long before the modern period 
of artificial improvement; large, strong breeds 
pervade some districts, and small, weak breeds 
pervade others; powerful, bulky, well-formed, 
and productive breeds are coextensive with the 
range of climate, soil, herbage, culture, and treat- 
ment best fitted to improve them; such large 
cattle as those of the eastern counties of Scot- 
land are merely varieties of the same breed as 
the small ones of the Grampian Mountains and 
the Hebridean Islands ; and the smallest, feeblest, 
worst-shaped, and least productive are capable of 
being, in the course of two or three generations, 
transmuted, by means of superior climate, feed- 
ing, crossing, and management, into as valuable 
cattle as any of the best existing varieties. 
‘The breeds and varieties of cattle at present 
reared on British farms are exceedingly numer- 
ous, and approximate one another by a series of 
the nicest and almost imperceptible gradations. 
Yet, though capable of multitudinous classifica- 
tion, and though often requiring, for purposes of 
convenience, to be arranged into numerous dis- 
trict divisions, they can be comprehensively dis- 
tributed into five great groups;—the polled or 
hornless, in Galloway, Suffolk, and Norfolk; the 
crumpled-horned, in Alderney and some parts of 
the south of England; the short-horned, in Dur- 
ham, eastern Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and the 
northern English counties; the middle-horned, 
in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, northern De- 
von, easterm Sussex, Wales, and most of Scot- 
land; and the long-horned, in Ireland, Lanca- 
shire, and the midland counties of England. But 
only in their native districts, or on a few select 
estates, are these to be found pure; and every- 
where else they are so thoroughly and intricately 
intermixed as to form a countless and bewildering 
number of mongrel varieties. The polled breed 
has existed in some districts from time immemo- 
rial, and, in particular, is strongly identified with 
Galloway, and yet may have orginally been a 
mere accidental variety; the crumpled horned 
breed is a native of Alderney; the short-horned 
breed seem to have been originally imported 
into the district of Yorkshire around Hull from 
some part of the western continental Europe be- 
tween Denmark and France; and the long-horned 
and the middle-horned breeds compete, among 
keen and numerous disputants, for the honour 
of being the aboriginal breed of British cattle. 
Mr. Youatt assigns the long-horns to Ireland, | 
and claims the middle-horns as the aboriginal 
British. “ Britain,’ says he, “has shared the 
fate of other nations; and oftener than they, al- 
though defended by the ocean on every side, she 
has been overrun and subjugated by ferocious in- 
vaders. As the natives retreated before the foe, 
they carried with them some portion of the wreck 
of their property; and this, in early times, con- 
sisted principally in cattle. They naturally drove 
along with them as many as they could, when 
they retired to the fortresses of North Devon and 
Cornwall, or the more motintainous region of 
Wales, or when they took refuge even in the 
wealds of East Sussex; and there retaining all 
their prejudices, and customs, and manners, they 
were jealous of the strict preservation of that 
which principally reminded them of their native 
country before it had yielded to a foreign yoke. 
In this manner probably was preserved the an- 
cient breed of British cattle. Difference of cli- 
mate gradually wrought some change, and par- 
ticularly in their bulk. The rich pasture of 
Sussex fattened the ox of that district into his 
superior size and weight. The plentiful but not 
so luxuriant herbage of the north of Devon, 
produced a somewhat smaller and more active 
animal, while the occasional privations of Wales 
lessened the bulk and thickened the hide of the 
Welsh runt. As for Scotland, it, in a manner, 
set its invaders at defiance; or its inhabitants 
retreated for a while, and soon turned again on 
their pursuers. They were proud of their country, 
and proud of their cattle, their choicest posses- 
sion ; and there, too, the cattle were preserved 
unmixed and undegenerated. ‘Thence it resulted, 
