362 BRITISH MAMMALS 



the exception of Cadzow, where they still remain a type well 

 worth studying.^ In England they are kept at Chillingham, in 

 Northumberland shire ; Lyme Park, in Cheshire; Chartley (Earl 

 Ferrers' place in Staffordshire) ; and at Vaynol (Mr. Assheton- 

 Smith's place in North Wales). I rather think, however, that 

 at Vaynol they have been introduced. The colours of the 

 Cadzow wild cattle are white with black ears, black muzzles, 

 and black often on the lower part of the front legs. There are 

 often flecks of black about the head and fore quarters. The 

 Chartley cattle have black ears. Those at Lyme and Chillingham 

 Park are white with red ears. At Chillingham, in Northumber^ 

 landshire, where the cattle have somewhat unjustly given their 

 name to this feral breed of the British Islands, the colour of the 

 ears and muzzle may be either black or red. But in all these 

 parks there is a great tendency for coloured calves to be dropped 

 that are either red or black or dun. As these are invariably 

 killed, the breed, of course, is kept white artificially ; otherwise 

 it is quite conceivable that it might revert to colour. Hector 

 Boethius, or Boece, who wrote about 1526, describes the wild 

 cattle of the Caledonian forests as being white, and shaggy like 

 lions. Domestic cattle that have run wild in various parts of the 

 world have often turned to a uniform white breed with black ears 

 and points. 



The white wild cattle of England may be said to differ from 

 the urus, chiefly (i) in their much smaller size — they are as big 

 as fairly large domestic breeds; (2) in their proportionately 

 shorter limbs ; (3) possibly in their colour ; and (4) in the 

 proportionate size of the horns in the male. In the pure breed, 

 however, as shown by examples from Cadzow and Chartley, the 

 horns of the female agree almost exactly with the little we know 

 of the horns of the female urus — that is to say, they bend forward, 

 and then turn upwards and backwards with a slight twist. The 

 horns of the bull (when of pure breed) are remarkably like 

 those of the urus in shape and direction, only, of course, they 



^ The picture of wild cattle which I have drawn for this book is intended 

 to illustrate the Cadzow breed 



