The cattle which have run wild on the Pampas, in Texas, and in two parts of Africa, have become of a nearly uniform dark {86} brownish-red.[197] On the Ladrone Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, immense herds of cattle, which were wild in the year 1741, are described as "milk-white, except their ears, which are generally black."[198] The Falkland Islands, situated far south, with all the conditions of life as different as it is possible to conceive from those of the Ladrones, offer a more interesting case. Cattle have run wild there during eighty or ninety years; and in the southern districts the animals are mostly white, with their feet, or whole heads, or only their ears black; but my informant, Admiral Sulivan,[199] who long resided on these islands, does not believe that they are ever purely white. So that in these two archipelagos we see that the cattle tend to become white with coloured ears. In other parts of the Falkland Islands, other colours prevail: near Port Pleasant brown is the common tint; round Mount Usborne, about half the animals in some of the herds were lead or mouse-coloured, which elsewhere is an unusual tint. These latter cattle, though generally inhabiting high land, breed about a month earlier than the other cattle; and this circumstance would aid in keeping them distinct and in perpetuating this peculiar colour. It is worth recalling to mind that blue or lead-coloured marks have occasionally appeared on the white cattle of Chillingham. So plainly different were the colours of the wild herds in different parts of the Falkland Islands, that in hunting them, as Admiral Sulivan informs me, white spots in one district, and dark spots in another district, were always looked out for on the distant hills. In the intermediate districts intermediate colours prevailed. Whatever the cause may be, this tendency in the wild cattle of the Falkland Islands, which are all descended from a few brought from La Plata, to break up into herds of three different colours, is an interesting fact. Returning to the several British breeds, the conspicuous difference in general appearance between Short-horns, Long-horns (now rarely seen), Herefords, Highland cattle, Alderneys, &c., must be familiar to every one. A large part of the {87} difference, no doubt, may be due to descent from primordially distinct species; but we may feel sure that there has been in addition a considerable amount of variation. 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.