Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/35

 that what is now taken on credit will be made good hereafter. It is a well-known fact in human history that, as one race retires before another, the retiring and the invading races are usually accompanied by some part of their live stock, and above all by their cattle which, in earlier times, not only afforded food and clothing but took a chief share in tilling the earth, and thus were an outstanding necessity in man's existence. The Helvetii, and Cassievelaunus, the British chief who drove his people and their flocks into the woods on the approach of the Romans in Cæsar's time, and the Spaniards, the English, and the Boers in recent times might be referred to as examples. When the Celtic people retired before the English they carried their cattle along with them into the west and the north; and till this day, the cattle in the Celtic parts of Britain, which are descended from the cattle of the pre-Roman Celts, and through them from the pre-historic Bos longifrons, are predominantly black, and, as we look farther and farther into the past, we find the territory of these black cattle larger, and the regularity of their colour increasing. Till nearly the end of the seventeenth century, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and the north of England were almost fully occupied by black cattle, among which there was a sprinkling of reds, whites, and brindles, and an occasional dun; in still earlier