such as being hornless, etc., have appeared suddenly from what we may call a spontaneous variation,"[1] and "No one can give any explanation—although no doubt there must be a cause—of the loss of horns, any more than of the loss of hair, both losses strongly tending to be inherited. It is, I think, possible that the loss of horns has occurred often since cattle were domesticated, though I can call to mind only a case in Paraguay about a century ago."[2]
But neither theory will bear much inquiry, for each presumes a phenomenon which has not been seen within what might be called bovine historical time to have been of frequent and widespread occurrence in the earlier days of legend and myth. It is true that many cattle now hornless—and sheep, too, for that matter—are descended from ancestors that were horned; but in those cases the horns were removed by crossing with hornless breeds.
Whence, then, came our hornless cattle? That question can only be answered after some consideration of their history and distribution. At the present time there are only three breeds of hornless cattle in Britain; but in the eighteenth century there were hornless breeds in eight or ten places round the coasts of England and
- ↑ "Animals and Plants under Domestication," 1868, vol, i. p. 92.
- ↑ Letter to Messrs. Macdonald and Sinclair, published in their "History of Polled Aberdeen or Angus Cattle," 1882, p. 12.
