Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/520

492 time, the large breed of oxen from which., by a continual process of selection, our larger and more valuable breeds are descended.

The small Celtic short-horn was the only domestic breed known in Roman Britain, and its remains are exceedingly abundant in the refuse-heaps belonging to that period. Had any other large cattle been used, their bones would undoubtedly have been preserved in the same manner as those of all the other animals kept by the British farmers.

The first notice of cattle differing from the small dark Celtic short-horn is to be found in the Venedotian laws of Howel Dha, in which "white cows with red ears" are mentioned. These laws were codified in the tenth or eleventh century, but the customs to which they relate date back to a much earlier period. In a later translation of the Welsh laws, a hundred white cows with red ears are considered equal in value to a hundred and fifty black cattle. The white cattle are identical with those of Chillingham, usually considered to be wild, but which more probably are their descendants, and have inherited their characters without change. It is not likely that so large an animal could have survived in Britain into the Historic period in a wild state, because its creamy- white colour would make it conspicuous to its enemies, and render concealment impossible in so densely-populated an island as Britain. These large cattle are distributed throughout every part of Britain conquered by the English, while the Celtic short-horn only survives in those parts in which the British had taken refuge. From these considerations it may be inferred that the