WHITE CATTLE: AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 419 



" hares, wilde goates, or fallowe deere, wilde swine, and such other 

 like wilde beastes." In this book we are also told that " wilde 

 oxen, which are called in Proiience and Languedoc brans or branes, 

 are not fit for anything by reason of their great f uriousnes and 

 wildneSj except onely for the shambles : such oxen are brought up 

 in the fennie places of Laruargues and upon the sea coast, far 

 from the haunt of other beastes or walke of man." Wild oxen 

 in this sense are animals bred for beef, and from the following 

 passage we gather that in colour they were not white, but most 

 probably would be " of a red haire" or a " blacke." The writer of 

 Countre Farme says — " Though in France the red colour be euer 

 most preferred, yet as Serres [a French writer] also affirmeth, the 

 blacke is fully as excellent; for the red exceedeth, but in prouing 

 an extraordinarie vertue in the milke, ^ but the blacke is euer the 

 hardest, best flesh t, best tallowed, and hath the strongest hyde." 

 Coming to English books on English animals, in the early part 

 of the seventeenth centur}'-, three important works were published 

 within the space of ten years. The first was Leonard iNIascall's 

 First Booke ofCattell, pubhshed in 1605 ; the second, Ed. Topsell's 

 Historie of Foure-footed Beasts, published in 1607 ; and the 

 tliird, Gervase Markham's Cheape and Good Husbandry, pub- 

 lished in 1614. In the first of the three books named, Mascall's 

 First Booke of Cattell, wq find " certaine generall rules of oxen." 

 To give three examples. First, they must be "with long homes 

 somewhat blacke;" secondl}'-, "the dewlappe or skinne that hangeth 

 under his throat, to be great in hanging almost downe to his 

 knees;" and third, "his colour to be redde, or blacke is best." 

 Then we are informed of " the manner and way best for a man 

 to tame his oxen." One way recommended is to "yoake him to 

 wild bullockes that haue not laboured before." It is well to note 

 the sense in which the word " wild " is here employed. The wild 



1 Dalyell, in The Darker Superstitions of Scotland, 1835, p. 431, 

 says : — "A prejudice against white cows has subsisted among the peasantry 

 of Scotland, on account of the alleged inferiority of the milk. But its true 

 source may be in some remote superstition, regarding the lawfulness of 

 consuming the product of a consecrated animal. " 



After the above, Dalyell quotes several authorities on the veneration of 

 white cattle, and then at p. 433 he writes — "Possibly a prejudice in 

 Scotland for red cows, from the superiority of the milk, originates in 

 superstition likewise." 



