Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/136

 128 CATTLE many advantages over them under Drusus and under Germanicus, who destroyed Mattium, their chief town, hut never wholly conquered them. They are last mentioned as existing toward the close of the 4th century, and after- ward disappear among the Franks. CATTLE, a class of domestic animals. In its primary sense, horses and asses are included in the term, as well as oxen, cows, sheep, goats, and perhaps swine. In England, beasts of the ox species are more precisely described as black cattle or neat cattle. In the United States, the term cattle is usually applied to horned animals alone. Like that of many other species of animals now domesticated, as the sheep, the dog, and our common barnyard poultry, the origin of the domestic ox cannot be traced distinctly to any type now existing in a state of nature. The distinctive character- istics of the common domestic cattle are smooth unwrinkled horns, growing sideways at their origin, and directed upward, or in some breeds downward and forward, with a semi-lunar curve. The forehead of the common ox is tlat, longer than it is broad, and has the round horns placed at the two extremities of a pro- jecting horizontal line, separating the front from the occiput ; but the horns themselves differ so widely in the different breeds, which have been the result of thousands of years of domestication, that no specific character can be founded upon them. In color, like all highly cultivated domestic animals, they run through all hues and shades, from the plain blacks, whites, browns, reds, duns, grays, and blues, to every variety of piebald, mottled, spotted, flecked, or brindled ; the colors being in some degree distinctive of the various select breeds. Thus the Devonshires run to self-col- osed red and light tan or dun ; the Durhams to dark red piebald, with the white portions sometimes flecked or sanded, though this is rather an Ayrshire mark; the Alderneys to light red or yellow, and white ; the Ayrshires to roan and piebald; and the small Scottish kyloes, or mountain oxen, to self-colored blacks, reds, and brindles. In Calabria there is still a large breed of snow-white cattle, fonnerly in great request for sacrificial purposes, which has descended unchanged from classic ages; and every traveller in Italy knows the large, gentle, gray and mouse-colored oxen of the Campagna. In Hungary there is a remarkable breed of gray or dark blue cattle, which have wide-spreading horns and coarse flesh, but fat- ten easily. In the East there exist many sin- gular and distinct species, the most remarkable of which is perhaps the celebrated sacred or Brahman bull; a heavy, indolent, phlegmatic animal, with short reflected horns, large pen- dulous ears, and an enormous hump and dew- lap of solid fatty matter. Its coat is smooth, and sleeker than even that of the common cattle, while its form approaches nearer to that of the bison. Besides this, they have the huge, morose, almost hairless buffalo, both wild and half domesticated, with its great, erect, cres- cent-shaped horns, of 18 inches girth at the root, and 4 or 5 feet measure round the exte- rior curve ; the little, hump-backed zebu ; the yak, or grunting ox of Thibet, with a tail like that of a horse ; and probably many other varie- ties, yet imperfectly known and undescribed. It was formerly supposed that domestic cattle were descended from the wild European bison, los urus (see AUROCHS) ; but Cuvier has shown this idea to be erroneous, by pointing out per- manent characteristic distinctions in the osseous structure, particularly in the formation of the skull and insertion of the horns. It appears that there has been generally overlooked by naturalists a race of perfectly wild cattle pecu- liar to the British isles, which, formerly known as the wild bull of the great Caledonian forest, seems to have ranged all the woody northern regions of the island. They were of medium size, compactly built, invariably of a dingy, cream-colored white, with jet-black horns and hoofs, and the upper half of the ears either black or dull red. They are represented as having formerly had manes ; but that charac- teristic is lost. Within a few years three herds of these cattle were in existence : one in the chase of Chillingham castle, the property of the earl of Tankerville, in Northumberland ; one in that of the duke of Hamilton, at Hamil- ton castle, in Scotland ; and one at Drumlanrig, in Dumfriesshire. Lord Tankerville's herd were red-eared ; those of the duke of Hamilton had the black ears which are considered char- acteristic of the pure Scottish race. Although kept in confinement within vast enclosed chases, these cattle were perfectly wild, tameless, and savage. They would hold no connection with other cattle, more than the red deer will with the fallow ; they would not brook the approach of man, and evinced their original wild nature by the pertinacity with which the cows con- cealed their calves in deep brakes of fern or underwood, and resisted any approach to their lair. The structural characteristics of these cattle differ in no respect from those of the do- mestic ox ; their invariable self-color is a cer- tain evidence of the purity and antiquity of their breed, as it is a strong proof that they are not the descendants of tame animals, relapsed into a savage state ; since such, as is the case with the South American herds, long re- tain their variegated hues, the tokens of do- mestication and servitude. Of the cattle of continental Europe, the Polish or Ukraine ox- en are large and strong, and fatten readily, the flesh being succulent and well flavored. The cows are shy, not fit for the dairy ; color light gray, seldom black or white; oxen docile at work. On the plains of Jutland, Holstein, and Schleswig there is a fine breed with small, crooked horns, supposed to be allied to the Friesland and Holderness breed ; colors various, mouse or fawn interspersed with white being most common. Red cows of this breed are seldom seen. The cows are good milkers in