406 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



and we suppose they are the wild bulls depicted on Assyrian 



monuments (Fig. 32, p. 272 ; notice the projecting horns). The 



Assyrians also used to capture the calves of these wild cattle, 



and bring them alive to their royal abodes. The cattle that 



would be taken out of Assyria by any wave of emigration 



would, no doubt, have some of the blood and characteristics 



of this wild race in them, and from this source, perhaps, their 



blood has entered into some of the domesticated breeds of Europe. 



Allusion has been made to the probability of the Scotch 



Unicorn having been an Antelope. Still we have no proof to 



support such a statement ; but apparently we once had humped 



cattle in Britain, which might be regarded as equally strange 



and improbable. Ellon, in his Origins of English //^siory (1890), 



writes : — " Accordinsj to the authors of the earliest Triads 



[Welsh bards], the swarms of wild bees in the woods gave its 



first name to the ' Isle of Honey ' ; and the first settlers were 



supposed to marvel at the bears and wolves, the humped cattle 



of the forest, and the colonies of beavers in the streams." Were 



these humped forest cattle white or black 1 In Egypt, and, we 



think, in Rome and Greece, the Indian or humped ox was used 



for sacrifice, and was white, but they were not emblematic of 



any deity. ^ Such cattle were domesticated, we believe, but the 



wild or feral specimens may have been black. At any rate, 



a writer in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1840 



states that : — "In the districts of Akbarpoor and Dostpoor, 



^ T. A. Wise, in his History of Paganism in Caledonia, writes as 

 follows: — "White bulls were held in especial honour among the Celts, 

 who used to sacrifice them to the moon ; and so sacred was this animal 

 regarded among them, that to swear by the image of it was accepted as an 

 oath taken before the Gods. An oath of this kind was once (101 B.C. ) 

 given by the Cimbri to the Romans and accepted as a pledge that the terms 

 of the treaty made when they capitulated would be religiously respected. 

 Bulls of a decidedly Hindu character are met with on the stones of 

 Scotland. There is one on the large Meigle Cross, which has the 

 characteristic hump on the shoulder." 



A reference to Fig. 20, p. 249, will show that in the relief termed 

 " The Apotheosis of Homer," the sacrificial animal there is also humped. 



Wise further writes — " Some of the sculptured stones of Pictavia supply 

 us with interesting archaeological details, such as priests in their robes, 

 with books, or in processions with sacred oxen, or oxen about to be 

 sacrificed." 



