416 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
compared with some of the best known white domesticated breeds 
of cattle on the Continent. 
Harrison, in 1577, also writes as follows regarding our cattle :— 
“Tn like manner our oxen are such as the like are not to 
be found in anie countrie of Europe, both for greatness of bodie 
and sweetnesse of flesh, or else would not the Romane writers 
have preferred them before those of Liguria. . . . . Their 
hornes also are knowne to be more faire and large in England than 
in anie other places, except those which are to be seene among 
the Peones, which quantitie, albeit that it be giuen to our breed 
generallie by nature, yet it is now and then helped also by art. 
Certes, it is not strange in England to see oxen 
whose hornes have the length of a yard or three foot betweene 
the tips, and they themselues thereto so tall, as the height of a 
man of meane and indifferent stature is scarse equall vnto 
them.” 
From this description we learn that the cattle of England 
were large in body, and were long-horned. If the reference to 
the Pzeones be taken as a guide, then the cattle here referred to 
must have been like the Hungarian ox of the present day, and 
would be white in colour. Harrison’s reference to the “wild 
and cruell buls” of Scotland is especially interesting. He 
writes :—‘“ They had in like sort no lesse plentie of wild and 
cruell buls, which the princes and their nobilitie in the frugall 
time of the land did hunt, and follow for the triall of their 
manhood, and by pursute either on horsse backe or foot in 
armor ; notwithstanding that manie times they were danger- 
ously assailed by them. But both these sauage cretures [lions 
and bulls] are now not heard of, or at the least wise the later 
scarselie known in the south parts.” 
When these animals existed, Scotland must have enjoyed the 
same sport which in Spain has degenerated into the modern 
bull-fight. The animals now used in the bull-ring in Spain are 

1 Describing England in 1592, Jacob Rathgeb wrote :—‘‘ About mid- 
day we came upon a fertile country, where there were little low hillocks, 
and a fine breed of splendid large oxen, and countless numbers of sheep.” 
- “Of tame quadrupeds, it has beautiful oxen and cows, 
although not so big as the Burgundy cattle, but they have very large 
horns, are low and heavy, and for the most part black,” 
