ble that, though ancient and
semi-civilised people might have attended to the improvement of their more
useful animals in essential points, yet that they would have disregarded
unimportant characters. But human nature is the same throughout the world:
fashion everywhere reigns supreme, and man is apt to value whatever he may
chance to possess. We have seen that in South America the niata cattle,
which certainly are not made useful by their shortened faces and upturned
nostrils, have been preserved. The Damaras of South Africa value their
cattle for uniformity {209} of colour and enormously long horns. The
Mongolians value their yaks for their white tails. And I shall now show
that there is hardly any peculiarity in our most useful animals which, from
fashion, superstition, or some other motive, has not been valued, and
consequently preserved. With respect to cattle, "an early record,"
according to Youatt,[504] "speaks of a hundred white cows with red ears
being demanded as a compensation by the princes of North and South Wales.
If the cattle were of a dark or black colour, 150 were to be presented." So
that colour was attended to in Wales before its subjugation by England. In
Central Africa, an ox that beats the ground with its tail is killed; and in
South Africa some of the Damaras will not eat the flesh of a spotted ox.
The Kaffirs value an animal with a musical voice; and "at a sale in British
Kaffraria the low of a heifer excited so much admiration that a sharp
competition sprung up for her possession, and she realised a considerable
price."[505] With respect to sheep, the Chinese prefer rams without horns;
the Tartars prefer them with spirally wound horns, because the hornless are
thought to lose courage.[506] Some of the Damaras will not eat the flesh of
hornless sheep. In regard to horses, at the end of the fifteenth century
animals of the colour described as _liart pomme_ were most valued in
France. The Arabs have a proverb, "Never buy a horse with four white feet,
for he carries his shroud with him;"[507] the Arabs also, as we have seen,
despise dun-coloured horses. So with dogs, Xenophon and others at an
ancient period were prejudiced in favour of certain colours; and "white or
slate-coloured hunting dogs were not esteemed."[508]

Turning to poultry, the old Roman gourmands thought that the liver of a
white goose was the most savoury. In Paraguay black-skinned fowls are kept
because they are thought to be more p