The evolution of British cattle and the fashioning of breeds/Bos Primigenius

by James Wilson

EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE

I

BOS PRIMIGENIUS

In this volume it will be our duty again and again to question, and sometimes to destroy, many fondly cherished beliefs as to the origin and history of the cattle of the British Isles, and also as to the manner in which nearly every breed has been evolved. Were our duty merely to destroy, it could be pleasant neither in its performance nor in the contemplation of its results; but it is to be hoped that no belief will be destroyed without a better one being put forward in its place. Little would be gained, for instance, by telling cattle owners that no British breed, excepting, perhaps, the Sussex, could lay serious claims to purity of blood in a long and unbroken stream, unless it could be shown that the most exalted breeds have attained their present eminence entirely through the mingling of diverse strains and races. Again, it would only irritate the people of Durham to tell them that, when they set up a new cow in their cathedral in place of the one that had done duty for five hundred years, and when they took such care that "the horns were made this time of lead, lest she should ever again be reduced to the condition of a polled beast," they may have erred in assuming that the older cow had ever horns at all; although it might mollify them to know that the legendary cow that was the means of leading Saint Cuthbert's body to Durham was ornamented in a manner that neither the city nor the county of Durham need be ashamed of. And, although it may involve some risk to tell a Highland laird that the origin of his majestic breed is not "lost in the mists of antiquity," or the utilitarians of Aberdeen and Forfar that their thrifty blacks are descended from small, thinfleshed, narrow-backed, sickle-hocked, light-dun beasties, the risk may be minimised when it is shown that the cattle of the Gaelic-speaking Highlander in the west and the Scots-speaking Lowlander in the east can be traced back to those that accompanied their ancestors when they came over the North Sea a thousand years ago.

And we must play the Vandal at the very beginning with one of the most picturesque stories in which our cattle have ever played a part. Writers who have speculated upon the ancestry of British cattle have been struck by the phenomenon that, while the vast majority have been domesticated for many centuries, there still exists in England and Scotland a small number of herds which, though they have been enclosed in parks and thus far partially tamed, have never yet, to all appearance, been brought under the yoke.

At the present day these herds are few, but it has been shown that, in former times, such herds existed in certain parts of the country in considerable number.^[1] The likeness of these wild cattle to some of our domestic breeds has been frequently commented upon. Some writers have remarked their resemblance to the so-called creamy- white Highlanders, the white cattle of Wales, and the white-coloured Shorthorns; others have noticed that their horns were like those of the black breeds of Ireland and Wales, and, in less degree, like those of the red-coloured cattle of Devon; while some have seen in these wild white cattle a strong resemblance, both in size and shape, to the modern Ayrshires.

These resemblances led many writers to conclude that the wild white cattle, and most of our domestic breeds, are of the self-same race, descended from the same original stock, and that, while in bygone times the ancestors of the domestic ones had been captured and tamed, the ancestors of the wild ones, by so me lucky chance, had escaped the thrall of man. The problem of tracing the ancestry of the whole was thus narrowed down to tracing that of a very few, and not only from their very picturesqueness, and the fact that they had never been tamed, but also because they had been referred to more than once in early writings, the wild white cattle afforded the most attractive clue.

The first step into the past was obvious and clear: it was to a spirited description of the Chillingham herd, written towards the end of the eighteenth century by Mr. Bailey, of Chillingham, and printed by George Culley in his "Observations on Live Stock": —

"The wild breed, from being untameable, can only be kept within walls or good fences; consequently very few of them are now to be met with, except in the parks of some gentlemen, who keep them for ornament, and as a curiosity; those I have seen are at Chillingham Castle, in Northumberland, a seat belonging to the Earl of Tankerville. Their colour is invariably of a creamy white; muzzle black; the whole of the inside of the ear, and about one-third of the outside, from the tips downwards, red; horns white, with black tips, very fine, and bent upwards; some of the bulls have a thin upright mane, about an inch and a half or two inches long. The weight of the oxen is from 35 to 45 St., and the cows from 25 to 35 st. the four quarters (14 lb. the stone). ***** "At the first appearance of any person they set off in full gallop, and, at a distance of about two hundred yards, make a wheel round and come boldly up again, tossing their heads in a menacing manner; on a sudden they make a full stop at a distance of forty or fifty yards, looking wildly at the object of their surprise, but upon the least motion being made, they all turn round, and fly off with equal speed, but not to the same distance, forming a shorter circle, and then returning with a bolder and more threatening aspect than before; they approach much nearer, probably within thirty yards, when they again make another stand, and again fly off. This they do several times, shortening their distance, and advancing nearer and nearer, till they come within such a short distance, that most people think it prudent to leave them, not chusing to provoke them further.

"The mode of killing them was perhaps the only modern remains of the grandeur of ancient hunting. On notice being given that a wild bull would be killed on a certain day, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood came mounted and armed with guns, etc., sometimes to the amount of an hundred horse, and four or five hundred foot, who stood upon walls or got into trees, while the horsemen rode off the bull from the rest of the herd till he stood at bay, when a marksman dismounted and shot. At some of these huntings twenty or thirty shots have been fired before he was subdued. On such occasions the bleeding victim grew desperately furious, from the smarting of his wounds and the shouts of savage joy that were echoing from every side. But from the number of accidents that happened, this dangerous mode has been little practised of late years, the park-keeper alone generally shooting them with a rifled gun at one shot.

"When the cows calve, they hide their calves for a week or ten days in some sequestered situation, and go and suckle them two or three times a day. If any persons come near the calves, they clap their heads close to the ground and lie like an hare in form, to hide themselves; this is a proof of their native wildness, and is corroborated by the following circumstance that happened to the writer of this narrative, who found an hidden calf, two days old, very lean and very weak. On stroking its head it got up, pawed two or three times like an old bull, stepped back a few steps, and bolted at his legs with all its force; it then began to paw again, stepped back, and bolted as before, but, knowing its intent, and stepping aside, it missed him, fell, and was so very weak that it could not rise, tho' it made several efforts: but it had done enough—the whole herd were alarmed, and, coming to its rescue, obliged him to retire; for the dams will allow no persons to touch their calves, without attacking them with impetuous ferocity."

The next step was longer, but it was none the less obvious. It was to the wild cattle roaming the forest in unstinted freedom before the Norman barons or their successors took to enclosing parks for the preservation of game. Mediaeval conditions lingered longest in some parts of Scotland, and thence about 1526 from the pen of Hector Boece, came the picture that fascinated the imagination and indicated the path to be followed if the ancestors of the wild white cattle were to be found.

"At this toun began the grit wod of Calidon.^[2] This wod of Calidon ran fra Striveling, throw Menteith and Stratherne, to Atholl and Lochquabir, as Ptolome writtis in his first table. In this wod wes sum time quhit bullis, with crisp and curland mane, like feirs lionis, and thoucht they semit meek and tame in the remanent figure of thair bodyis, thay wer mair wild than ony uthir beistis, and had sic hatrent aganis the societe and cumpany of men, that thay come nevir in the wodis, nor lesuris quhair thay fand ony feit or haind thairof, any mony dayis eftir, thay eit nocht of the herbis that wer twichit or handillit by men. Thir bullis wer sa wild, that thay wer nevir tane but slight and crafty laubour, and sa impacient that, eftir thair taking, they deit for importable doloure. Alse sone as ony man invadit thir bullis they ruschit with so terrible preis on him, that they dang him to the eird, takand na feir of houndis, scharp lancis, nor uthir maist penitrive wapinnis. … And thoucht thir bullis wer bred in sindry boundis of the Calidon Wod, now, be contiwal hunting and lust of insolent men, thay are distroyit in all partis of Scotland, and nane of thaim left but allanerlie in Cumarnald."

Nor can it be denied that the impression made by Boece was deepened by Sir Walter Scott—

"Through the huge oaks of Evandale,^[3]
   Whose limbs a thousand years have worn,
What sullen roar comes down the gale.
   And drowns the hunter's pealing horn?

"Mightiest of all the beasts of chase.
   That roam in woody Caledon,
Crashing the forest in his race,
   The Mountain Bull comes thundering on.

"Fierce on the hunter's quiver'd band,
   He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow,
Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand,
   And tosses high his mane of snow.

"Aim'd well, the Chieftain's lance has flown,
   Struggling in blood the savage lies;
His roar is sunk in hollow groan—
   Sound, merry huntsmen! sound the pryse."

The ancestors of the British wild cattle were therefore mighty and untameable monsters of unconquerable ferocity, and none could be found more likely than the Uri of the Hercynian forest in Western Germany. Cæsar describes three extraordinary animals there: first, a stag-like ox, with a horn springing from the middle of its forehead between the ears. Next, an elk with no knots or joints in its legs,^[4] which could not lie down. If it fell by accident it could not get up again, and, so, it must recline against trees by way of going to bed, a habit which was its undoing, for the Germans of those days undermined or weakened the trees and, so, captured the elks that leant against them and fell. Last, the Uri.^[5]

"The third of these three beasts are called Uri. In size they are a trifle smaller than elephants; in kind, colour, and shape they are bulls. Great is their strength and great their speed; nor, having espied them, do they spare either men or beasts. They are sedulously captured in pits and slain: the young men hardening themselves by such toil and training themselves by this kind of sport: and they who have killed most Uri, proclaimed as such by the horns being exhibited in public, receive great commendation. But it is not possible to accustom the Uri to men or to tame them, not even though they are caught young. Their horns differ much in size, shape, and kind from those of our cattle. They are anxiously sought after, the lips mounted with silver, and used as cups at the most abundant banquets."

The final step was from Caesar's Urus to a British relative whose occasional remains have been found in primeval Scots bogs and East Anglian fens and in alluvial and lacustrine deposits whose hospitality they have shared with the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and other aforetime inhabitants of England and Scotland since Neolithic times. This ox was of gigantic proportions. McKenny Hughes^[6] describes it as "a large, gaunt beast with a long, narrow face." Fleming says,^[7] "Many of the skulls which occur in marl-pits in Scotland exhibit dimensions superior to those of the largest domestic breed. A skull in my possession measures twenty-seven inches and a half in length, and eleven inches and a half across the orbits." Owen, in describing a skull in the British Museum found near Atholl in Perthshire, says, "The skull is one yard in length and the span of the horncores is three feet six inches."^[8] The accompanying drawings, in McKenny Hughes's paper, from an ox of this kind "found in Burwell Fen, near Cambridge, with a polished stone implement sticking in its skull,"^[9] will indicate the relationship that subsisted between this animal and Neolithic man.

Bos primigenius, from Burwell Fen, Cambridge.
	[From McKenny Hughes.

Bos primigenius (side view), from Burwell Fen, Cambridge.
	[From McKenny Hughes.

What we are asked to believe is that our wild white cattle, and some at least of our domestic breeds trace back direct to this ancient giant, Bos primigenius. Sentiment and vanity tempt us to accept the belief, although we admit, in doing so, that our forefathers have left us a sadly degenerate legacy. We must dissent, however, from other considerations, the chief of which is that no remains of Bos primigenius have been found in deposits later than those of the Bronze Age. "The Urus or Bos primigenius … is characteristic of the time when men used polished stone implements, that is, of the Neolithic or Newer Stone Age. It probably did not become extinct until the Bronze Age."^[10]

Even were the geological record less clear, it would still be difficult to prove that Bos primigenius was the ancestor of our modern cattle. The skeletal inconsistencies are too great. Leaving other considerations aside, and taking Fleming's measurements, which are the smallest, it is inconceivable that an animal whose skull was 27 inches long by 11 inches broad should be the ancestor of, say, the modern Shorthorn, an animal not much younger in time, whose skull is 23 or 24 inches long by 11 or 12 broad: that is, that the ratio of length to breadth should change from ${\overset {2.5}{1}}$ to ${\overset {2}{1}}$.

It has been maintained that Bos primigenius 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 one-horned ox, and his jointless elk. But is it possible for the Urus to have lived in Germany so long after he was extinct in Britain? and if he lived in Cæsar's time, would he have been called the Ur-ochs? Even so, was the Hercynian forest his likeliest habitation? It is far more easy to imagine either that some diplomatic and genial German had invented a tale to deter the great Roman general and please the imperial note-taker or that Cæsar was really describing the bison.

1. Harting's "Extinct British Animals," 1880.
2. Bellenden's translation. See Low's "Domesticated Animals," p. 234.
3. Ballad of Cadzow Castle.
4. Crura sine nodis articulisque habent.
5. "Gallic War," bk. vi. chapter xxviii.
6. "On the more important Breeds of Cattle which have been recognised in the British Isles," 1896, p. 6.
7. "History of British Animals," 1828, p. 24.
8. "British Fossil Mammals," 1846, p. 501.
9. Op. cit.
10. McKenny Hughes.