236 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



candidissimi, auribus nigris." [Wild cattle of this 

 race now remain only in the woods about Drumlan- 

 rig, in Nithsdale, the seat of his Grace the Duke of 

 Queensberry. They are of the purest white colour, 

 with black ears.] He says nothing of the Cadzow 

 herd, and this quite agrees with the direct state- 

 ments which I have quoted as to extirpation. It 

 is usually assumed that the Drumlanrig herd was 

 extirpated about 1780, but from this statement of 

 Walker's the date may probably have been later, as 

 Storer, too, in his Wild White Cattle seems inclined 

 to assume on other evidence. 



From what I have brought forward I think there 

 is only one conclusion possible, viz., that about 1760 

 or a few years later the Cadzow herd became ex- 

 tinct, and that for the long period of thirty or forty 

 years white cattle ceased to browse in Cadzow 

 Forest. I think it is quite clear that towards the end 

 of last century and the beginning of this there was 

 only a memory of these having been there. The 

 direct evidence of Sir Walter Scott, Naismith, Heron, 

 and Denholm is, I hold, conclusive ; while Bewick 

 and Walker give negative support. Pennant did not 

 see the animals ; and mentioning them as few in his 

 first tour, he appears merely to have reiterated the 

 statement in connection with his second tour. 



As the cattle are now found in this park, the 

 question arises — when were they reintroduced ? 

 About the beginning of this century there was a 

 great revival of interest in the past history of 

 Scotland and in all that pertained to it, largely due 

 to the influence of Sir Walter Scott and his friends. 

 It is not perhaps too much to assume that the 

 ballad of " Cadzow Castle " awakened the interest of 

 the Ducal family of Hamilton in these cattle, and 

 that after its publication they were reintroduced. 



Whether this be so or not, it is clear that by the 

 year 1809 white cattle are again browsing in Cadzow 

 Forest. In that year Kobert Burns, of Hamilton, 

 published a ballad entitled Cadzoxo Castle, which he 



