Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/57

 V

Had this volume been written a year ago, the present and some of the following chapters would have been written with less confidence than now. Their titles might have been the same, but the efforts of the chapters themselves to live up to their titles might have been somewhat laboured. The polled cattle, for instance, would have been traced to the same origin as now, but the confirmatory evidence afforded by Mendelian researches would have been lacking; and the brindled cattle would have been traced to an origin that would have been entirely wrong.

It is generally believed that the hornless cattle of the British Islands have originated either in reversions or sports which cropped up here and there throughout the country in times gone by. They are believed to have originated in reversions or sports according as hornlessness or hornedness is held to have been the older condition. Darwin favoured the latter view: "It is probable that some breeds, such as the semi-monstrous niata cattle, and some peculiarities 45