Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/65

Rh :3. Balænoptera physalus (Linnæus). The Common Finback or Rorqual.

The Blue Whale.
 * 4. Balænoptera musculus (Linnæus).

Rudolphi's Rorqual.
 * 5. Balænoptera borealis, Lesson.

The Little Piked Whale, or Least Rorqual.
 * 6. Balænoptera acuto-rostrata, Lacépède.

The Humpback.
 * 7. Megaptera longimana (Rudolphi).

has contributed a timely, lengthy, and well illustrated paper on "White Cattle: an Inquiry into their Origin and History," to the last part of the Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. of Glasgow. These modern Park White Cattle are often described as descendants of Bos primigenius, and this opinion appears to be solely due to Prof. Rütimeyer; Mr. Wallace's contention, however, is that "they are simply the descendants of Roman cattle imported into the country during the Roman occupation." The evidence for this view is very amply given, and total agreement is pronounced with the conclusions of Prof. T. McKenny Hughes that we may take it as pretty well established that "the Urus characterizes the Neolithic age, having first appeared in Palæolithic times with the Bison, and having become extinct in Britain long before the Roman occupation. The Celtic Shorthorn appeared with the Urus in Neolithic times, lived down and through the Roman occupation, and thus may be regarded as the characteristic Ox of the Bronze age. The Romans improved the Celtic Shorthorn by crossing it with cattle imported from Italy; the form of the Roman Ox, as inferred from contemporary art, being exactly what was required to produce the modification observed in the latter Romanized breed. The characteristics of the Urus nowhere appear among the Romano-British cattle.

The Kerry Cattle are the most typical examples in the British Isles of the Celtic Shorthorn, while the Chillingham Cattle are the nearest representation of the breed introduced by the Romans.

The Highland and Welsh Cattle are derived largely from the Celtic Shorthorn, with more or less mixture of the Roman breed. All the above are whole-coloured or shaded.

The Longhorns, which appear nowhere with Romano-British or early mediæval remains, are the offspring of the large breeds imported from Holstein and the Low Countries in later mediæval times. All these, and the stock crossed with them, are apt to be parti-coloured or sheeted.

The Mediæval Shorthorn, as found in the ditches, &c, of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, is a reversion to the numerically predomi-