many characters from our European cattle, I have taken pains to ascertain
whether the two forms are fertile when crossed. The late Lord Powis
imported some zebus and crossed them with common cattle in Shropshire; and
I was assured by his steward that the cross-bred animals were perfectly
fertile with both parent-stocks. Mr. Blyth informs me that in India
hybrids, with various proportions of either blood, are quite fertile; and
this can hardly fail to be known, for in some districts (3/50. Walther 'Das
Rindvieh' 1817 s. 30.) the two species are allowed to breed freely
together. Most of the cattle which were first introduced into Tasmania were
humped, so that at one time thousands of crossed animals existed there; and
Mr. B. O'Neile Wilson, M.A., writes to me from Tasmania that he has never
heard of any sterility having been observed. He himself formerly possessed
a herd of such crossed cattle, and all were perfectly fertile; so much so,
that he cannot remember even a single cow failing to calve. These several
facts afford an important confirmation of the Pallasian doctrine that the
descendants of species which when first domesticated would if crossed have
been in all probability in some degree sterile, become perfectly fertile
after a long course of domestication. In a future chapter we shall see that
this doctrine throws some light on the difficult subject of Hybridism.

I have alluded to the cattle in Chillingham Park, which, according to
Rutimeyer, 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 these, together with any defective
animals, were always destroyed." According to Bewick, about the year 1770
some calves appeared with black ears; but these were also destroyed by the