Page:On the Ancient and Modern Races of Oxen in Ireland (IA jstor-20489834).pdf/9

72 now existing in Ireland. The four other heads placed beside it are evidently those of cows of the same breed, but slightly differing one from another, probably as the result of domestication. Most of the heads found in crannoges have been broken in the centre of the forehead by some blunt instrument, and a few were evidently perforated by bronze celts, such as those now in the Museum.

The second breed (for I fear calling it a variety, lest I might offend the naturalists) would appear to be the most numerous, and is the curved horned. This magnificent head of a bull of this race (in second row) is, in point of size, one of the finest specimens of ancient oxen found in the British Isles: it is 231 inches long and 8 inches across the forehead, which has been broken in by some blunt instrument, probably in slaughtering. The horn-cores are not so large at the base, but more than twice as long as those of the straight-horned race; they are curved considerably inwards, so that the tips of the horns, when perfect, must have approached much nearer than their bases; each horn-core was, when perfect, about eleven inches long, measured upon its upper curvature. This head, together with most of the others of its class, came from. Loughgur, county of Limerick. The horns did not spread so wide or rise so high as those of the modern Kerry.

The third set of heads here arranged were undeniably short-horns, and of a very peculiar class: they are characterized by long, narrow