






230 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
We often lose sight of the social conditions of life in past days 
in discussing the history of our cattle breeds, The country was 
unenclosed, and cattle was the medium by which penalties were 
paid and gifts made. Cattle were also raided and lifted as 
opportunity occurred. In fact, from Anglo-Saxon laws we learn 
that special care was taken in regard to certain goods where the 
presumption of theft was particularly strong, such goods being 
cattle and old clothes. Now, under the conditions of raiding, 
gift-giving, and penalty-paying, cattle must have been easily 
transported, and be regarded rather as tame than wild beasts, In 
medieval stories of the Bubali or Tauri sylvestres (Fig. 4), we read of 






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Fic. 4.—Hunting the Urus. 
them as wild beasts. Bubalus would be used for cattle that had 
escaped, z.e., run wild. Los camporwm, bubalus nemorum. Were 
the “ bubali” cattle in our sense of the word? This is a point I 
will discuss further on in my paper. But “wild beasts” is a 
common expression for cattle under certain conditions. We say 
that cattle on ranches are wild because they roam, feed, and breed 
uncontrolled ; but they are still domesticated cattle, and not un- 
