224 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



the tongue at its tip are of the same colour. The 

 Chillingham bull differs in marking, has reddish 

 ears, and its horns are brown in the lower part and 

 white above. 



The popular exaggeration that they are a distinct 

 and untamable race has grown out of the eagerness 

 of human nature after the unique. A Bos or Urus 

 scoticus would be a singularity of much patriotic 

 significance. 



The most marked features about the cattle that 

 may be considered as indicating wildness are, in my 

 opinion, the sharp watchfulness of their quick black 

 eyes and their peculiar restlessness and alert sus- 

 picion in the presence of intruders. They are mis- 

 trustful creatures, snuffing danger from afar, quick- 

 eyed, quivering in ear, and alert in limb. A sense 

 of danger is ever present with them. In feeding, 

 they keep together and do not straggle, are not 

 easily approached by man, scampering off on the 

 least occasion, till, on being hard-pressed, they take 

 panic and charge. The same shyness is seen in the 

 calves. Late in the autumn they are separated from 

 the herd and enclosed by themselves. Their behavi- 

 our differs markedly from that of the ordinary domesti- 

 cated calf, which shows a playful pleasure in human 

 pattings and scratchings. These white calves are as 

 distrustful of man as their elders, retreating as far 

 as they can, and keeping their suspicious black eyes 

 fixed on any intruder. This shyness I take to be 

 the salient feature of wildness in the herd. This 

 gives meaning to all their actions, such as those 

 described by the Rev. William Patrick on an occa- 

 sion of a periodical shooting among them. He says, 

 in an article in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture 

 (1839) : " These animals are never taken and killed 

 like other cattle, but are always shot in the field. 

 I once went to see a bull and some cows destroyed 

 in this manner — not by any means for the sake of 

 the sight, but to observe the manner and habits of 

 the animal under peculiar circumstances. When the 



