Wild Cattle of Chillingham Park. 275 



" In the first place I must premise that our information as to their 

 origin is very scanty. All that we know or believe in respect to it 

 rests in great measure on conjecture, supported, however, by certain 

 facts and reasonings which lead us to believe in their ancient origin, 

 not so much from any direct evidence, as from the improbability of 

 any hypothesis ascribing to them a more recent date. I remember 

 an old gardener of the name of Moscrop, who died many years ago, 

 at the age of perhaps 80 or more, who used to tell of what his father 

 had told him as happening to him when a boy, relative to these wild 

 cattle, which were then spoken of as wild cattle, and with the same 

 sort of curiosity as exists with respect to them at the present day. 



M In my father and grandfather's time we know that the same ob- 

 scurity as to their origin prevailed ; and if we suppose (as no doubt 

 was the case) that there were old persons in their time capable of 

 carrying back their recollections to the generation still antecedent to 

 them, this enables us at once to look back to a pretty considerable 

 period, during which no greater knowledge existed as to their origin 

 than at the present time. It is fair, however, to say, that I know of 

 no document in which they are mentioned at any early period. Any 

 reasoning, however, that might be built on their not being so no- 

 ticed would equally apply to the want of evidence of that which 

 'would be more easily remembered or recollected, — the fact of their 

 recent introduction. 



" The probability is that they were the ancient breed of the island, 

 inclosed long since within the boundary of the park. 



n Sir Walter Scott, rather poetically, supposes that they are the 

 descendants of those which inhabited the great Caledonian forest 

 extending from the Tweed to Glasgow, at the two extremities of 

 which, namely at Chillingham and Hamilton, they are found. Hia 

 lines in the ballad ' Cadyon Castle/ describe them pretty accurately 

 at the present day : 



1 Mightiest of all the beasts of chase, 

 That roam in woody Caledon, 

 Crushing the forest in his race, 

 The mountain bull conies thundering on, 

 * Fierce on the hunter's quiver'd band 

 He rolls his eye of swarthy glow, 

 Spurns with black hoof and horns the sand, 

 And tosses high his mane of snow.' 



I must observe, however, that those of Hamilton, if ever they were 

 of the same breed, have much degenerated. 



" The park of Chillingham is a very ancient one. By a copy of 



T 2 



