WHITE CATTLE : AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 251 



would undoubtedly look upon them as of special value. During 

 their occuoation this reverence and preference for white cattle 

 must have spread among the people, and was never lost. Probably 

 they held "white bulls" in esteem long before the appearance of 

 the Romans. We are told that the Druids, clothed in white, cut 

 the mistletoe with a golden sickle, and that it was caught in a 

 long white cloak, and carried home on a waggon drawn by two 

 snow-white bulls which had never felt the yoke. Our forefathers 

 in mediaeval and later days were not antiquaries or museum 

 collectors, and did not trouble themselves about posterity. They 

 did not keep and preserve white cattle so that we might have at 

 the close of the nineteenth century examples of the indigenous 

 mammalia of the country to place in our museums. They may 

 have outgrown the superstitions of the Romans and Druids in 

 favour of a white race of cattle, but they had apparently replaced 

 it with a preference for its beef. To the gastronomic tastes and 

 digestive powers of our forefathers do we owe in great measure 

 our present breed of white cattle. White cattle, I think, were 

 preserved in parks to supply fresh beef. All other beef was 

 salted, and, therefore, fresh beef was a dainty. Mutton, though 

 obtainable fresh, was not appreciated, for we are told " chair de 

 mouton, Tnanger de glouton.^' According to Laurens Andrewe in 

 ''^ JSfohle Lyfe" "an oxce flessh is the dryest flesshe amonge all 

 other, and his blode is nat holsome to be eten, for it wyll nat 

 lightlv disieste." Andrew Boorde, in his "Dvetarv," savs, " beefe 

 is a 20od meate for an Enorlvssheman, so be it the beest be vonore, 

 and that it be not kowe-flesshe : for old beefe and kowe-flesshe 

 doth ingender melancholye and leperouse humoures." We do not 

 find this said about 'Mvhite wild bulls;" about them we read 

 of their "sweetnesse" of flesh. Topsell, in his "Historic of 

 Foure-footed Beasts," published in 1607, gives a print of what he 

 calls "the white Scotian bison,'" and he savs that the "white 

 Calidonian or Scotian bison " are " now growen to a small 

 number," and that " their flesh is very pleasant, though full of 

 sinewes." This is, however, a digression, for we are, in our 

 argument, still seeking in ancient Italy for the type of our park 

 cattle. Lookinof at the existins: labourinsr cattle of the south of 

 Italy, we see in them the old Roman breed, with upturned Ivre- 

 shaped horns and a well-marked dewlap, as shown in Roman wall 



