India in 1887 as seen by Robert Wallace / [Robert Wallace].

  • Robert Wallace
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: India in 1887 as seen by Robert Wallace / [Robert Wallace]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    given by people living to the north. It is a common practice in India to give in the name an indication of the direction from which imported cattle come. The name Khilari signifies that they are reared and kept in herds— from Khilar, a herd—in contradistinction to cattle bred in smaller numbers and in closer and more intimate com- munication with man, as is universally the case with Indian village cattle. Local names, as of places or districts, are usually applied to Mysore cattle of those districts, to distinguish them from other varieties of the breed. The original type of animal first imported many genera- tions ago is most probably not now directly or fully repre- sented by any of its descendants. The divergencies from the original stock and the characters peculiar to local breeds would be gradually influenced in two ways. First, as the Mysore blood spread over the country it would to a greater or less degree be “ stained ” by infusion of local blood, and, though with the greater potency which is usually combined with fine quality resulting from careful breeding, it retained the main features, variation to some extent would become inevitable; and, second, the in- fluences of varying surrounding conditions, continued through generations, mould and alter the characters of all classes of animals, not so much by means of the law of the survival of the fittest, as this hardly comes into play except in cases of extremity, such as famine, but through a natural tendency to constitutional adaptation, without necessitating the killing off or obliteration of any. For example, in some districts cattle almost invariably have hard flinty feet; in others the feet are soft and easily injured. Again, some soils produce animals with large bones and massive frames, other soils produce small bones. In the matter of colour, I have no doubt the soil, in some cases, has had an influence, but in the particular instance of the Mysores of the western districts, the dark