
WHITE CATTLE: AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETc. 231 
reclaimed aboriginal beasts. I think my view of the term wild 
can be upheld. In the ‘“Foure Bookes of Husbandry,” written 
by Googe in 1577, he says in his second book, ‘‘ Entreatying of the 
ordring of wooddes,” that “some of them be wylde and grow of 
themselves, not needing any looking to.” Taking “wylde” in this 
sense, would it not be exact to say that our “ wild cattle ” are the 
descendants of a “ white domesticated race turned loose to a life 
of comparative freedom.” I shall refer to the subject again when 
T come to deal with the historical data I have been able to glean.* 
Another factor we must bear in mind is that, in the days of 
open pasture, bulls were roaming about, and herds’ books were 
unknown, so that purity of breed is an absolute impossibility, yet 
we know that the Devons have kept all red, the Pembrokes all 
black, and the park cattle white, which shows the prepotency of 
their ancestral types. Further, the “wild” park cattle have 
certain indications which show that they are not from a wild race, 
but from an ancient domesticated breed— 
lst. They are of the same species as domestic cattle, and breed 
readily with them. 
Qnd. They go with their young precisely the same time. 
3rd. Their-bones are fine, while those of the Urus, their sup- 
posed ancestor, are coarser even than those of the Bison. 
4th. They calve at all seasons. 
__ 2) ET aaa 
1 The word “wild” seems to have been used in many senses. More, in 
his “Utopia,” writes— Your sheep that were wont to be so meek and 
tame, and so small eaters, now, as I hear say, be become so great devourers 
and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves.” 
Again, Spenser says :— 
“*T saw a Bull as white as driven snowe 
With gilden hornes embowed like the moone.” 
And on another occasion he writes :—- 
‘* Like a wylde bull, that, being at a bay 
Is bayted of a mastiffe, and a hound.” 
It will be noticed that he does not say that the white bull was wild, and 
his “‘ wylde bull” is simply a savage animal. The bulls at bull-fights are 
not wild in the sense we speak of wild animals. Further, we read of 
“wild field-grass husbandry” as a more primitive form of agriculture 
than that practised by village coramunities. Here ‘‘wild” cannot be 
uncultivated. 
