WHITE CATTLE: AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 223 
ago. A writer, for example, in the Penny Magazine, in 1838, on 
our wild cattle, says:—“It is, however, highly probable that 
these animals are the remains of a breed which was formerly kept 
tame in the farms in many parts of England.” Another writer on 
* Animal Economy,” in the Farmers’ Library (1847), says: —“ The 
ancient Britons had tame cattle in abundance, and among these 
a white breed particularly valued. . . . The descendants of 
these might at various times have become feral . . . and of 
these feral herds the Chillingham wild cattle may be the lineal 
descendants, if not, indeed, the tame race once so much esteemed.” 
Again, in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture for 1829, James 
Wilson writes :—“ The supposed original of this animal (the Urus 
of the ancients) is probably extinct in the living state. In the 
fossil skulls, which appear to represent it, the horns are curved 
forwards and downwards, but in the countless varieties of the 
domestic breed these parts are very different in their forms and 
direction, and are sometimes wanting altogether.” 
The early history of our cattle generally, or of white catile 
specially, seems to rest on two descriptions—first, that of Cesar, 
with his great long-horned, wild, and untamable Aurochs, or Uri, 
of the Hercynian, or Black Forest of Germany; and secondly, that 
of Hector Boece or Boethius, with his wild and untamable bulls of 
the purest white, having manes like lions, which roamed in the 
Caledonian forest. English and Continental naturalists have 
never been tired apparently of ringing the changes on these two 
descriptions. It is now generally admitted that Cesar in his 
description has mixed up two animals. He tells us that “ great 
is their strength and great their speed,” that they have the 
appearance, colour, and form of an Italian bull, though as large 
as an elephant, and ihat so savage is their nature that, “though 
taken never so young, they cannot be tamed,” while “those who 
kill most bulls carry back the horns as a glorious trophy of the 
chase.” If Czsar’s Urus be regarded as a Bison, then it could 
not have had the appearance,-colour, or form of an Italian bull. 
If it be regarded simply as an Ox, then it could not have had the 
antipathy to the other Bovide we are told that it did show. 
Did Cesar ever see these animals? Seeing that modern scholar- 
ship states that Cesar’s Commentaries, &c., especially regarding 
the Hercynian Forest, are simply transcripts from Pytheas, who 
