WHITE CATTLE : AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 231 



reclaimed aboris^inal beasts. I think mv view of the term wild 

 can be upheld. In the '-Foure Bookes of Husbandry," written 

 by Googe in 1577, he says in his second book, " Entreatying of the 

 ordring of wooddes," that ''some of them be wylde and grow of 

 themselves, not needing any looking to." Taking " wylde " in this 

 sense, would it not be exact to sav that our " wild cattle " are the 

 descendants of a " white domesticated race turned loose to a life 

 of comparative freedom." I shall refer to the subject again when 

 I come to deal wdth the historical data I have been able to srlean. ^ 



Another factor we must bear in mind is that, in the days of 

 open pasture, bulls were roaming about, and herds' books were 

 unknown, so that purity of breed is an absolute impossibility, yet 

 we know that the Devons have kept all red, the Pembrokes all 

 black, and the park cattle white, which shows the prepotency of 

 their ancestral types. Further, the "wild"' park cattle have 

 certain indications which show that they are not from a wild race, 

 but from an ancient domesticated breed — 



\st. They are of the same species as domestic cattle, and breed 

 readilv with them. 



Ind. They go with their young precisely the same time. 



Zrd. Their bones are fine, while those of the Urus, their sup- 

 posed ancestor, are coarser even than those of the Bison. 



itli. Thev calve at all seasons. 



^ The word "wild" seems to have been used in many senses. More, in 

 his "Utopia," writes — "Yonr sheep that were wont to be so meek and 

 tame, and so small eaters, now, as I hear say, be become so great devourers 

 and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves. " 

 Again, Spenser says : — 



" I saw a Bull as white as driven snowe 

 With gilden homes embowed like the moone." 



And on another occasion he writes : — 



' ' Like a wylde bull, that, being at a bay 

 Is bayted of a mastiffe, and a hound." 



It will be noticed that he does not eay that the white bull was wild, and 

 his "wylde bull" is simply a savage animal. The bulls at bull-fights are 

 not wild in the sense we speak of wild animals. Further, we read of 

 "wild field-grass husbandry" as a more primitive form of agriculture 

 than that practised by village communities. Here "wild" caimot be 

 uncultivated. 



