Charles Darwin

“ Numerous sheep from various parts of the world have been brought during a long course of years to the Zoological Gardens of London; but as Youatt, who attended the animals as a veterinary surgeon, remarks, "few or none die of the rot, but they are phthisical; not one of them from a torrid climate lasts out the second year, and when they die their lungs are tuberculated." ”

“ When we compare highly improved stall-fed cattle with the wilder breeds, or compare mountain and lowland breeds, we cannot doubt that an active life, leading to the free use of the limbs and lungs, affects the shape and proportions of the whole body. It is probable that some breeds, such as the semi-monstrous niata cattle, and some peculiarities, such as being hornless, &c., have appeared suddenly from what we may call a spontaneous variation ”

“ This curious result seems merely to be an exaggerated tendency natural to the Merino breed, for as a great authority, namely, Lord Somerville, remarks, "the wool of our Merino sheep after shear-time is hard and coarse to such a degree as to render it almost impossible to suppose that the same animal could bear wool so opposite in quality, compared to that which has been clipped from it: as the cold weather advances, the fleeces recover their soft quality." ”

“ No one could behold the magnificent wild bulls on the bleak Falkland Islands in the southern hemisphere, and doubt about the climate being admirably suited to them. Azara has remarked that in the temperate regions of La Plata the cows conceive when two years old, whilst in the much hotter country of Paraguay they do not conceive till three years old; "from which fact," as he adds, "one may conclude that cattle do not succeed so well in warm countries." ”

“ A German naturalist [74] believes that our sheep descend from ten aboriginally distinct species, of which only one is still living in a wild state! Another ingenious observer, [75] though not a naturalist, with a bold defiance of everything known on geographical distribution, infers that the sheep of Great Britain alone are the descendants of eleven endemic British forms! Under such a hopeless state of doubt it would be useless for my purpose to give a detailed account of the several breeds; but a few remarks may be added.
Sheep have been domesticated from a very ancient period. ”

“ Nathusius has remarked, and the observation is an interesting one, that the peculiar form of the skull and body in the most highly cultivated races is not characteristic of any one race, but is common to all when improved up to the same standard. Thus the large-bodied, long-eared, English breeds with a convex back, and the small-bodied, short-eared, Chinese breeds with a concave back, when bred to the same state of perfection, nearly resemble each other in the form of the head and body. ”

“ There can hardly be a doubt that so great a change in habits would affect the skull; but it seems rather doubtful how far this will account for the greatly reduced length of the skull and for its concave front. It is well known (Nathusius himself advancing many cases, s. 104) that there is a strong tendency in many domestic animals—in bull- and pug-dogs, in the niata cattle, in sheep, in Polish fowls, short-faced tumbler pigeons, and in one variety of the carp—for the bones of the face to become greatly shortened. ”

“ But as races of men invading any country would probably give their own names to the breeds of cattle which they might there find domesticated, the argument seems inconclusive. There is indirect evidence that our cattle are the descendants of species which originally inhabited a temperate or cold climate, but not a land long covered with snow; for our cattle, as we have seen in the chapter on Horses, apparently have not the instinct of scraping away the snow to get at the herbage beneath. ”

“ The several above-specified differences in the park-cattle, slight though they be, are worth recording, as they show that animals living nearly in a state of nature, and exposed to nearly uniform conditions, if not allowed to roam freely and to cross with other herds, do not keep as uniform as truly wild animals. For the preservation of a uniform character, even within the same park, a certain degree of selection—that is, the destruction of the dark-coloured calves—is apparently necessary. ”

“ Domestic cattle are almost certainly the descendants of more than one wild form, in the same manner as has been shown to be the case with our dogs and pigs. Naturalists have generally made two main divisions of cattle: the humped kinds inhabiting tropical countries, called in India Zebus, to which the specific name of Bos Indicus has been given; and the common non-humped cattle, generally included under the name of Bos taurus. ”

“ That many breeds of cattle have originated through variation, independently of descent from distinct species, we may infer from what we see in South America, where the genus Bos was not endemic, and where the cattle which now exist in such vast numbers are the descendants of a few imported from Spain and Portugal. ”

“ The young, as we have just seen, reacquire their longitudinal stripes, and the boars invariably reassume their tusks. They revert also in the general shape of their bodies, and in the length of their legs and muzzles, to the state of the wild animal, as might have been expected from the amount of exercise which they are compelled to take in search of food. In Jamaica the feral pigs do not acquire the full size of the European wild boar, "never attaining a greater height than 20 inches at the shoulder." ”

“ As soon as two or more breeds had once been formed in any district, or when new breeds descended from distinct species were introduced, their crossing, especially if aided by some selection, will have multiplied the number and modified the characters of the older breeds. ”

“ Sheep are perhaps more readily affected by the direct action of the conditions of life to which they have been exposed than almost any other domestic animal. According to Pallas, and more recently according to Erman, the fat-tailed Kirghisian sheep, when bred for a few generations in Russia, degenerate, and the mass of fat dwindles away, "the scanty and bitter herbage of the steppes seems so essential to their development." Pallas makes an analogous statement with respect to one of the Crimean breeds. ”

“ As in sheep of all breeds the fleece naturally consists of longer and coarser hair covering shorter and softer wool, the change which it often undergoes in hot climates is probably merely a case of unequal development; for even with those sheep which like goats are covered with hair, a small quantity of underlying wool may always be found. ”

“ As numerous breeds are generally found only in long-civilized countries, it may be well to show that in some countries inhabited by barbarous races, who are frequently at war with each other and therefore have little free communication, several distinct breeds of cattle now exist or formerly existed. ”

“ The humped cattle in India "seldom seek shade, and never go into the water and there stand knee-deep, like the cattle of Europe." They have run wild in parts of Oude and Rohilcund, and can maintain themselves in a region infested by tigers. They have given rise to many races differing greatly in size, in the presence of one or two humps, in length of horns, and other respects. ”

“ Hodgson states that the extraordinarily arched nose or chaffron, which is so highly developed in several foreign breeds, is characteristic of the ram alone, and apparently is the result of domestication. [83] I hear from Mr. Blyth that the accumulation of fat in the fat-tailed sheep of the plains of India is greater in the male than in the female; and Fitzinger [84] remarks that the mane in the African maned race is far more developed in the ram than in the ewe. ”

“ Most authors look at our domestic sheep as descended from several distinct species; but how many still exist is doubtful. Mr. Blyth believes that there are in the whole world fourteen species, one of which, the Corsican moufflon, he concludes (as I am informed by him) to be the parent of the smaller, short-tailed breeds, with crescent-shaped horns, such as the old Highland sheep. The larger, long-tailed breeds, having horns with a double flexure, such as the Dorsets, merinos, &c., he believes to be descended from an unknown and extinct species. ”

“ I have alluded to the cattle in Chillingham Park, which, according to Rütimeyer, have been very little changed from the Bos primigenius type. This park is so ancient that it is referred to in a record of the year 1220. The cattle in their instincts and habits are truly wild. They are white, with the inside of the ears reddish-brown, eyes rimmed with black, muzzles brown, hoofs black, and horns white tipped with black. Within a period of thirty-three years about a dozen calves were born with "brown and blue spots upon the cheeks or necks ”

“ But it should be observed, as Youatt repeatedly insists, that the tendency to change may generally be counteracted by careful selection. M. Lasterye, after discussing this subject, sums up as follows: "The preservation of the Merino race in its utmost purity at the Cape of Good Hope, in the marshes of Holland, and under the rigorous climate of Sweden, furnishes an additional support of this my unalterable principle, that fine-woolled sheep may be kept wherever industrious men and intelligent breeders exist." ”

“ Even during the Neolithic period, the domestic cattle were not actually identical with the aboriginal species. Within recent times most of the breeds have been modified by careful and methodical selection. How strongly the characters thus acquired are inherited, may be inferred from the prices realised by the improved breeds; even at the first sale of Colling's Short-horns, eleven bulls reached an average of 214l., and lately Short-horn bulls have been sold for a thousand guineas, and have been exported to all quarters of the world. ”

“ We may, however, readily admit that abundant and rich food supplied during many generations would give an inherited tendency to increased size of body, and that, from disuse, the limbs would become finer and shorter. [18] We shall in a future chapter also see that the skull and limbs are apparently in some manner correlated, so that any change in the one tends to affect the other. ”

“ Therefore, looking to the origin of the many breeds of cattle which formerly inhabited the several districts of Britain, I conclude that, although slight differences in the nature of the climate, food, &c., as well as changed habits of life, aided by correlation of growth, and the occasional appearance from unknown causes of considerable deviations of structure, have all probably played their parts ”

“ Even to this day those reared near the Plata show their less civilized nature in being fiercer than common cattle, and in the cow, if visited too often, easily deserting her first calf. The breed is very true, and a niata bull and cow invariably produce niata calves. ”

“ Hence the Chinese breed, as Nathusius has remarked, [9] displays in an eminent degree the characters of a highly-cultivated race, and hence, no doubt, its high value in the improvement of our European breeds. Nathusius makes a remarkable statement (Schweineschädel, s. 138) , that the infusion of the 1/32nd, or even of the 1/64th, part of the blood of S. Indica into a breed of S. scrofa, is sufficient plainly to modify the skull of the latter species. ”

“ These pigs on the Paramos are small and stunted. The wild boar of India is said to have the bristles at the end of its tail arranged like the plumes of an arrow, whilst the European boar has a simple tuft; and it is a curious fact that many, but not all, of the feral pigs in Jamaica, derived from a Spanish stock, have a plumed tail. [29] With respect to colour, feral pigs generally revert to that of the wild boar; but in certain parts of S. America, as we have seen, some of the semi-feral pigs have a curious white band across their stomachs ”

“ From this one lamb the otter or ancon semi-monstrous breed was raised; as these sheep could not leap over the fences, it was thought that they would be valuable; but they have been supplanted by merinos, and thus exterminated. These sheep are remarkable from transmitting their character so truly that Colonel Humphreys [95] never heard of "but one questionable case" of an ancon ram and ewe not producing ancon offspring. When they are crossed with other breeds the offspring, with rare exceptions, instead of being intermediate in character, perfectly resemble either parent ”

“ Cattle without horns, and others with reversed hair, have also originated in Paraguay.
Another monstrous breed, called niatas or natas, of which I saw two small herds on the northern bank of the Plata, is so remarkable as to deserve a fuller description. This breed bears the same relation to other breeds, as bull or pug dogs do to other dogs, or as improved pigs, according to H. von Nathusius, do to common pigs. [64] Rütimeyer believes that these cattle belong to the primigenius type. ”

“ Fowler, this bull greatly improved his race. We have also reason to believe that selection, carried on so far unconsciously that there was at no one time any distinct intention to improve or change the breed, has in the course of time modified most of our cattle; for by this process, aided by more abundant food, all the lowland British breeds have increased greatly in size and in early maturity since the reign of Henry VII. [72] It should never be forgotten that many animals have to be annually slaughtered ”