Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/25

 may have crossed with his contemporary Bos longifrons, an animal about the size of a Kerry, and that some of our cattle are descended from the cross. Had such a cross taken place, cattle skeletally intermediate between Bos longifrons and Bos primigenius must have resulted; but of such there is no evidence; and Bos longifrons has remained essentially the same right through the period when he was contemporary with Bos primigenius down to the present time.

It has also been maintained by those who hold that the wild white cattle at least are descended from Bos primigenius, that they have deteriorated in size through confinement and consequent in-breeding. This presumes that they were giants at the time they were emparked. Had they deteriorated, as we are asked to believe, some of them in four or five centuries, some of them in two, such a phenomenon would not have escaped notice till the nineteenth century. And surely, since some herds were still at liberty centuries after others had been emparked, the contrast in size between the bond and the free would have been recorded had it been there to record. Besides, what evidence have we that cattle or any other polygamous animals deteriorate in size through in-breeding? As for Caesar's Urus, Urochs, Aurox, Aurochs, the primeval ancestral bull, the father of the race: is it to be taken seriously? Then, so must his