
WHITE CATTLE: AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 251 
would undoubtedly look upon them as of special value. During 
their oceupation this reverence and preference for white cattle 
must have spread among the people, and was never lost. Probably 
they held “ white bulls” in esteem long before the appearance of 
the Romans. We are told that the Druids, clothed in white, cut 
the mistletoe with a golden sickle, and that it was caught in a 
long white cloak, and carried home on a waggon drawn by two 
snow-white bulls which had never felt the yoke. Our forefathers 
in medieval and later days were not antiquaries or museum 
collectors, and did not trouble themselves about posterity. They 
did not keep and preserve white cattle so that we might have at 
the close of the nineteenth century examples of the indigenous 
mammalia of the country to place in our museums. They may 
have outgrown the superstitions of the Romans and Druids in 
favour of a white race of cattle, but they had apparently replaced 
it with a preference for its beef. To the gastronomic tastes and 
digestive powers of our forefathers ao we owe in great measure 
our present breed of white cattle. White cattle, I think, were 
preserved in parks to supply fresh beef. All other beef was 
salted, and, therefore, fresh beef was a dainty. Mutton, though 
obtainable fresh, was not appreciated, for we are told “chair de 
mouton, manger de glouton.” According to Laurens Andrewe in 
“ Noble Lyfe,” ‘an oxce flessh is the dryest flesshe amonge all 
other, and his blode is nat holsome to be eten, for it wyll nat 
lightly disieste.” Andrew Boorde, in his ““Dyetary,” says, ‘“ beefe 
is a good meate for an Englyssheman, so be it the beest be yonge, 
and that it be not kowe-flesshe: for old beefe and kowe-flesshe 
doth ingender melancholye and leperouse humoures.” We do not 
find this said about ‘‘ white wild bulls;” about them we read 
of their “sweetnesse” of flesh. Topsell, in his ‘“‘ Historie of 
Foure-footed Beasts,” published in 1607, gives a print of what he 
calls “the white Scotian bison,” and he says that the “ white 
Calidonian or Scotian bison” are “now growen to a small 
number,” and that “their flesh is very pleasant, though full of 
sinewes.” This is, however, a digression, for we are, in our 
argument, still seeking in ancient Italy for the type of our park 
cattle. Looking at the existing labouring cattle of the south of 
Italy, we see in them the old Roman breed, with upturned lyre- 
shaped horns and a well-marked dewlap, as shown in Roman’ wall 
