424 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW, 



In folk-lore, at least in Scotch folk-lore, I have noticed that 

 bulls and cows are black. We have references to the "Black 

 Cow of Germany," the "Black Bull of Norway," and such sayings 

 as "the black bull has trodden on your feet."^ Even Grimm 

 asks — " What can the black cow mean in the following phrases : — 

 'The black cow crushes him,' 'The black cow has trodden on 

 him?' " Setting aside the question of meaning, the special colour 

 must have been the universal one, or it must have been the colour 

 of the "wild" bulls and cows. In connection with the superstition 

 regarding bulls' heads there is, or rather must have been, one in 

 Scotland, which, if it could be explained, might help us now as 

 regards the origin of wild bulls and white bulls. Between 1 440 and 

 1631, there are many instances in Scottish history, where a bull's 

 head was employed as a token of death. Why should a bull's head 

 be a token of death? Was it the head of a white sacrificial 

 bull? Bulls, white and black, have found their way into 

 heraldry. I have taken the trouble to look through a standard 

 work on crests, and I find 13 crests with a Demi Bull, 1 with a 

 Bull's leg, and 330 with Bulls, sometimes borne winged, and Bulls' 

 heads and horns. Of the latter, 57 per cent, are argent and 43 

 per cent, sable. The white bulls thus preponderate, and in 

 many cases these white bulls are marked to show ears, tip of 

 horns, hoofs, and point of the tail, sable. If these crests were 

 taken or obtained for slaying a wild bull, then these animals 

 must have been both white and black. 



There are many points of view from which our subject can be 

 studied, the physiological, osteological, and archseological. If our 

 authorities, scientific and antiquarian, would give the matter some 

 attention, perhaps we would be better able to solve the problem. 

 I have endeavoured to indicate its many sidedness as far as I can, 

 but, of course, a personal survey, without aid, must be subject to 

 many limitations. I would, for instance, say that many points 

 could be noted by those interested in our old texts — in Folk Lore 

 and in local histories. In Ossian's Poems, for example, we read — 



^ Hcywood, in 1562, wrote : — 



" The blacke oxe neuer trode on thy foote : 

 But the dun Asse hath trode on both thy feete 

 Which Asse and thou, may seeme sproong of one roote : 

 For the Asses pace and thj"^ pace are meete." 



