Man gained the dog by domesticating the jackal and different species of wolves in different parts of the world and then by crossing, or, by a more or less unconscious selection, bred different varieties, until we have at present a chaos of intermingled forms. Something similar but on a smaller scale was true of the domestic cattle. One kind of domestic cattle appears fully domesticated in the oldest lake-dwellings. It is unlike any wild European form. This is the _Bos brachyceros_. It was almost certainly imported. Mingled with its forms we find those of the _Bos primigenius_, a native of Europe and North Asia, but apparently not domesticated. This is the urus, which was common in Europe in Cæsar's day, and lasted in central Europe until 1000 A. D. and still lingers in Poland.[58] This was a very large and powerful form with long spreading horns, whose domestication appears to have commenced toward the close of the Neolithic period. It is not improbable that it was domesticated, or at least tamed, independently in different countries at quite different times. Raising of cattle was at its height during the Bronze Age; afterward the results seem to decline and the cattle to degenerate. One of the Vaphio vases of about 1500 B. C. represents the capture of large, long-horned cattle in a net, while the second shows similar animals tamed. Apparently the smaller and lighter brachyceros was first tamed, and this success led to a series of experiments with the larger and more difficult form.[59] If we draw a line from northwestern Russia diagonally across Europe southwestward to the mouth of the Rhone, it will divide fairly well the distribution of the descendants of those two forms. To the eastward in Russia and Austria, also generally through Germany, and extending also along the shores of the Baltic, we find the large, heavy, usually long-horned descendants of the primigenius stock. The cattle of Spain, and southward into Africa, of France and England, are more of the short-horned, light-built, smaller brachyceros type. Holstein and Jersey are good representatives of the two types, though the Holsteins are, perhaps, a somewhat marked variety. Some regard the cattle of the Scotch highlands as the best representatives of the _primigenius_ type, though reduced in size. This same type, on account of its size and endurance of harsh climate, has furnished the range cattle of our Western plains.