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DIV. I. SECT. II. CLOVEN HOOFED.

* With horns.

**Without horns.

Horns bending out laterally.

Eight cutting teeth in the lower jaw, none in the upper.
Skin along the lower fide of the neck pendulous.

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Gefn. quad. 25, 26, 92.

II. OX.

Bos cornibus levibus teretibus, furfum reflexis. 3. DOMESTIC.
Briffon quad. 52.

Bos taurus. Lin. fyft. 98.

Taurus domefticus. Klein. quad. Bos cornibus teretibus flexis. Faun. Suec. 46.

10.

Br. Zool. 7.

Syn, quad. No. 4.

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Dan. Tyr

TH

HE climate of Great-Britain is above all others productive of the greatest variety and abundance of wholesome vegetables, which, to crown our happiness, are almost equally diffused thro' all its parts: this general fertility is owing to those clouded skies, which foreigners mistakenly urge as a reproach on our country; but let

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us chearfully endure a temporary gloom, which cloaths not only our meadows but our hills with the richeft verdure. To this we owe the number, variety, and excellence of our cattle, the richnefs of our dairies, and innumerable other advantages. Cæfar (the earliest writer who defcribes this island of Great-Britain) speaks of the numbers of our cattle, and adds that we neglected tillage, but lived on milk and flesh. Strabo takes notice of our plenty of milk, but fays we were ignorant of the art of making cheese +. Mela informs us, that the wealth of the Britains confifted in cattle: and in his account of Ireland reports that fuch was the richness of the pastures in that kingdom, that the cattle would even burst if they were fuffered to feed in them long at a time .

This preference of pafturage to tillage was delivered down from our British ancestors to much later times; and continued equally prevalent during the whole period of our feodal government: the chieftain, whofe power and fafety depended on the promptnefs of his vaffals to execute his commands, found it his intereft to encourage thofe employments that favoured that difpofition; that vaffal, who made it his glory to fly at the first call to the standard of his chieftain, was fure to prefer that employ, which might be tranfacted by his family with equal fuccefs during his abfence. Tillage would require an attendance incompatible with the fervices he owed the baron, while the former occupation not only gave leisure for + Lib. 4.

Lib. 5.

Adeo luxuriofa herbis non lætis modo fed etiam dulcibus, ut fe exigua parte diei pecora impleant, ut nifi pabulo prohibeantur, diutius pafta diffiliant. Lib. iii. c. 6.

Hollinfhed fays, (but we know not on what authority,) that the Romans preferred the British cattle to thofe of Liguria. Defc. Br. 109.

thofe

those duties, but furnished the hofpitable board of his lord with ample provifion, of which the vaffal was equal partaker. The reliques of the larder of the elder Spencer are evident proofs of the plenty of cattle in his days; for after his winter provisions may have been fupposed to have been moftly confumed, there were found, fo late as the month of May, in falt, the carcafes of not fewer than 80 beeves, 600 bacons, and 600 muttons *. The accounts of the feveral great feasts in after times, afford amazing inftances of the quantity of cattle that were confumed in them. This was owing partly to the continued attachment of the people to grazing†; partly to the preference that the English at all times gave to animal food. The quantity of cattle that appear from the latest calculation to have been confumed in our metropolis, is a fufficient argument of the vast plenty of these times; particularly when we confider the great advancement of tillage, and the numberless variety of provisions, unknown to past ages, that are now introduced into these kingdoms from all parts of the world ‡.

Our breed of horned cattle has in general been fo much improved by a foreign mixture, that it is difficult to point out the original kind of these islands. Those which may be fuppofed to have been

Hume's hiftory of England ii. 153.

+ Polyd. Virgil Hift. Angl. vol. i. 5. who wrote in the time of Henry the VIII. fays Angli plures pecuarii quam aratores.

That inquifitive and accurate historian Maitland furnishes us with this table of the quantity of cattle that were consumed in London above 30 years ago, when that city was far lefs populous than it is at prefent.

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purely British are far inferior in fize to thofe on the northern part of the European continent: the cattle of the highlands of Scotland are exceeding small, and many of them, males as well as females, are hornless: the Welb runts are much larger: the black cattle of Cornwall are of the fame fize with the laft. The large species that is now cultivated through most parts of Great-Britain are either entirely of foreign extraction, or our own improved by a cross with the foreign kind. The Lincolnshire kind derive their fize from the Holftein breed; and the large hornlefs cattle that are bred in fome parts of England come originally from Poland.

About two hundred and fifty years ago there was found in Scotland a wild race of cattle, which were of a pure white color, and had (if we may credit Boethius) manes like lions. I cannot but give credit to the relation; having feen in the woods of Drumlanrig in N. Britain, and in the park belonging to Chillingham castle in Northumberland, herds of cattle probably derived from the favage breed. They have loft their manes; but retain their color and fierceness they were of a middle fize; long leg'd; and had black muzzles, and ears: their horns fine, and with a bold and elegant bend. The keeper of thofe at Chillingham faid, that the weight of the ox was 38 ftones: of the cow 28: that their hides were more esteemed by the tanners than those of the tame; and they would give fix-pence per ftone more for them. Thefe cattle were wild as any deer: on being approached would inftantly take to flight and galop away at full fpeed: never mix with the tame fpecies; nor come near the house unless constrained by hunger in very fevere weather. When it is neceffary to kill any they are always shot: if the keeper only wounds the beaft, he must take care to keep behind fome tree, or his life would be in danger from the furious

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