1 1 8 The Field Naturalist's Quarterly May 



of snake - bite the reptile does not strike with accuracy, 

 and so wastes part of the venom, a very slight partial 

 immunity would be sufficient to confer upon the Mon- 

 goose a good opportunity of emerging scatheless from 

 what would otherwise be an encounter of the deadliest 

 danger. Such a slight susceptibility, coupled with the 

 undoubted dexterity the Mongoose possesses, would be 

 quite sufficient to account for all the facts of the case, 

 without the necessity of accrediting the animal with 

 the ability to select and use his own antidote as occa- 

 sion demanded. 



The White Cattle of Chartley, Staffordshire. 



By John R. B. Masefield, M.A. 



On a high wind-swept plateau, almost in the centre of the 

 county of Stafford, there exists an enclosed tract of forest or 

 common land estimated to be iooo acres in extent. The 

 herbage of this area consists of the coarsest grasses, rushes, 

 sedges, stunted heather and bilberry, and luxuriant bracken. 

 Here and there are the remains of decaying or dead oak- 

 trees, birches, and Scotch firs, in some places in clumps, and 

 elsewhere probably the remnant of former woodland. Little 

 rivulets are frequently met with, trickling along, draining 

 the higher ground, and passing through the miniature valleys 

 formed in course of years gone by. These streamlets, pass- 

 ing here and there over level ground, spread out and form 

 ponds and marshes. Around this park is erected a stout 

 fence of cleft oak posts and rails, some 8 feet in height. 

 Such is the home and sanctuary of the surviving remnant of 

 the so-called Wild White Cattle of Chartley Park (Bos taurus, 

 Linn.) Other herds of aboriginal cattle formerly existed at 

 Kincardine, Stirling, Cumbernauld, Cadzow, and Drum- 

 lanrig in Scotland, and at Chillingham (Northumberland), 

 Burton Constable and Gisburn (Yorkshire), Lyme (Cheshire), 

 Wollerton (Nottingham), Middleton (Lancashire), Holdenby 

 (Northants), and a few other places. Most of these herds 



