CROSSING OUT OF HORNS.

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 50 (Supplement)

CROSSING OUT OF HORNS.

The apparent ease with which horns can be bred out in the case of domesticated cattle lias led to the opinion that the progenitors of our present breeds of horned stock were polled. All available evidence points in the contrary direction, as fossil remains and existing allied types living in wild form prove that horns were the normal features. It would be absurd to think that the ancient stocks from which our modern breeds of cattle havp sprung could have existed in the polled com dition, as horns were primarily meant for offensive and defensive purposes. The modern polled animal can almost, invariably hold its own against horned companions, on account of its harder skull and generally stronger shoulders, but in the “forest primeval” a hard skull and horns well set for attack were essential.

Week in, weeK out, one reads or'liears ‘ of horns being bred out with one cross. In the majority of cases, the horns do go, no doubt, for the time being, and after years of continued crossing with polled sires the horns give promise as it.were, to be off once for all. Still, the reversions in the fourth, fifth, and even sixth generation are sufficiently numerous to make any upholder of tho foundation polled theory pause. One cannot write cf any special train of existing polled stock as being given to reversion, because one has no call to spoil a market for good animals of their class. Instances could, however, be given in support cf the’ “harking back” after horns, and even “scurs” wc-re supposed to be forev*r out. of the way. Ancestors forty or more years back, with strong “scurs” on their heads are as much to blame for “bucks'’ and “scurs” as the cattle which had ordinary “honest horns.” On tne other hand, it is a matter of common experience that loose “scurs”—abortive horns with no bony attachment to the head—have rarely given the least trouble, the descendants of a bull or cow having loose “scurs” being almost invariably quite clean in the poll. A flat or squaretopped head, almost perfectly free from even the bud of a “scur, ’ is not at all desirable, because ail "occasional descendant of such an animal may fail into the “mistake” which was avoided by the parent with the fiat crown. With reference to polls in genera!, or “muleys,” as our American .friends term them, their origin in past times, no doubt, was from “sports.” I nder the peaceful sway of domestication, Nature lias a tendency to take her ease when work ceases to be a necessity. Were it not for artificial selection horns would probably disappear in a gradual fashion. The attachment to tiie skull in the case of many individual animals is thin and weak. One can note so much at odd times when there is a fighting melee or rough jostling in putting fractious animals into railway trucks- A trifling knock separates the outer she!! of horn from the head, the core, perhaps, remaining quite intact, lhe dividing line between a thm, deliea-.e attaching shell of horn and a “scur” is fine. In fact, one- may say that tho horn which is abnormally thin at its base attachment, although provided with a healthy enough core, needs but small excuse to breed stocks with mere “bucks” or “scurs,” or with respec.ably formed bare polls. It may reasonably be inferred that selection plays the main part in keeping horns on our various breeds of cattle, because long uomestication has done something in the thinning down of the frontal and parental bones. Where the horns have disappeared there Las been a partial reversion to a stronger bony protection for the brain.