418 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



not be noted in this list. Further, we are told that " oxen with 

 straight homes be accompted excellent in worke, and blacke oxen 

 with lyttle homes be accounted lesse profitable to working." Here 

 we note "blacke oxen" is a term employed with a wide general 

 meaning, and that big-horned cattle were in request. In one of 

 the editions of this book, "Balman uppon Bartholome, his booke, 

 De Proprietatibus Rerum 1582," we obtain some examples of the 

 use of the term " wild." " Some bulls be wilde, fierse, and sterne, 

 . and those bulles be red in colour, . . . and may not 

 be taken but in deepe pits and caves." ..." Cowe. — If they 

 range without a Heard, they were wilde, so that Heardes maye 

 not tame them," .... "and kine lyue in company e, and 

 be ofte lost, if they goe out of companye, for then wilde beasts 

 eate them." 



Bartholomew, who, as already noted, wrote in 1360, says that 

 the German wild ox (the Urus) was in colour black or red, with 

 long strong horns. Balman, writing in 1582, says there are no 

 wild oxen. The following are the two passages in question : — "In 

 Germania be wilde oxen with so long horns, that ye Kings 

 boord is served with drink thereof ; for he holdeth so much, as 

 Isi saithj and is a beast of great strength^ and may not be tamed, 

 but with an yron ring put through his nose-thrill, by the which 

 ring he is led about; and is black or red, and is thin haired, 

 with homes ; and his forhead is beclypped with full strong 

 homes, and his flesh is good not onely to meate, but also to 

 medicine." To this is added the following sixteenth-century 

 editorial note by Balman : — 



'•^Additio: — There are no wilde oxen, but either Bulls, BufFells, or 

 females of that kind ; this is a tame errour, the author meant the furious 

 bufifell of the greater kinde, called Uro or Tarando." 



It will be seen from this that, in the sixteenth century at any 

 rate, special meanings were attached to the words oxen, bulls, and 

 buffells, and I gather that the term oxen was restricted to those 

 animals that had their neck in the yoke. Yet other writers do 

 not restrict the word oxen in this sense. In The Countre Fmme, 

 13ublished in 1600 (a translation of L' Agriculture et liaison 

 Bustique, published in 1593), we are told how "to imparke wild 

 beastes," and we read of " Buffles (buffaloes), wild oxen, and wild 

 Bulls. We also read of " wilde cattell ; " but this term includes 



