Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/44

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
32
EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE

modern Italy is thus expressed by McKenny Hughes[1]: "If a selection of the lighter coloured individuals of the common draught-ox of Italy were turned out in a park in England, no one would suspect that they did not belong to the wild white breed. … A comparison of the skeleton of the Chillingham bull in the British Museum with that of an Italian bull presented by the King of Italy, shows that there is no essential difference between them."

Modern Italian bull.
[From McKenny Hughes.
Chillingham bull.
[From McKenny Hughes.


A short consideration of a few other circumstances will make the connection between the two sets of cattle still clearer. A Roman colony was not altogether parallel to many of our modern colonies. The Romans in Britain were rather organisers of an empire than colonists. They did

  1. Op, cit., p. 20.