416 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



compared with some of the best known white domesticated breeds 

 of cattle on the Continent. 



Harrison, in 1577, also writes as follows regarding our cattle : — 

 " In like manner our oxen are such as the like are not to 

 be found in anie countrie of Europe, both for greatness of bodie 

 and sweetnesse of flesh, or else would not the Romane writers 



have preferred them before those of Liguria Their 



homes also are knowne to be more faire and large in England than 

 in anie other places, except those which are to be seene among 

 the Paeones, which quantitie, albeit that it be giuen to our breed 

 generallie by nature, yet it is now and then helped also by art. 

 Certes, it is not strange in England to see oxen 

 whose homes have the length of a yard or three foot betweene 

 the tips, and they themselues thereto so tall, as the height of a 

 man of meane and indifferent stature is scarse equall vnto 

 them."i 



From this description we learn that the cattle of England 

 were large in body, and were long-horned. If the reference to 

 the Pseones be taken as a guide, then the cattle here referred to 

 must have been like the Hungarian ox of the present day, and 

 would be white in colour. Harrison's reference to the " wild 

 and cruell buls " of Scotland is especially interesting. He 

 writes: — "They had in like sort no lesse plentie of wild and 

 cruell buls, which the princes and their nobilitie in the frugall 

 time of the land did hunt, and follow for the triall of their 

 manhood, and by pursute either on horsse backe or foot in 

 armor ; notwithstanding that manie times they were danger- 

 ously assailed by them. But both these sauage cretures [lions 

 and bulls] are now not heard of, or at the least wise the later 

 scarselie known in the south parts." 



When these animals existed, Scotland must have enjoyed the 

 same sport which in Spain has degenerated into the modern 

 bull-fight. The animals now used in the bull ring in Spain are 



1 Describing England in 1592, Jacob Rathgeb wrote : — " About mid- 

 day we came upon a fertile country, where there were little low hillocks, 

 and a fine breed of splendid large oxen, and countless numbers of sheep." 

 . . . " Of tame quadrupeds, it has beautiful oxen and cows, 

 although not so big as the Burgundy cattle, but they have very large 

 horns, are low and heavy, and for the most part black," 



