
WHITE CATTLE: AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 419 
“hares, wilde goates, or fallowe deere, wilde swine, and such other 
like wilde beastes.” In this book we are also told that “ wilde 
oxen, which are called in Prouence and Languedoc brans or branes, 
are not fit for anything by reason of their great furiousnes and 
wildnes, except onely for the shambles: such oxen are brought up 
in the fennie places of Laruargues and upon the sea coast, far 
from the haunt of other beastes or walke of man.” Wild oxen 
in this sense are animals bred for beef, and from the following 
passage we gather that in colour they were not white, but most 
probably would be “of a red haire” or a “blacke.” The writer of 
Countre Farme says—“ Though in France the red colour be euer 
most preferred, yet as Serres [a French writer] also affirmeth, the 
blacke is fully as excellent; for the red exceedeth, but in prouing 
an extraordinarie vertue in the milke,! but the blacke is euer the 
hardest, best flesht, best tallowed, and hath the strongest hyde.” 
Coming to English books on English animais, in the early part 
of the seventeenth century, three important works were published 
within the space of ten years. The first was Leonard Mascall’s 
First Booke of Cattell, published in 1605 ; the second, Ed. Topsell’s 
Historie of Foure-footed Beasts, published in 1607; and the 
third, Gervase Markham’s Cheape and Good Husbandry, pub- 
lished in 1614. In the first of the three books named, Mascall’s 
First Booke of Cattell, we find “certaine generall rules of oxen.” 
To give three examples. First, they must be “with long hornes 
somewhat blacke ;” secondly, ‘‘the dewlappe or skinne that hangeth 
under his throat, to be great in hanging almost downe to his 
knees ;” and third, “his colour to be redde, or blacke is best.” 
Then we are informed of “the manner and way best for a man 
to tame his oxen.” One way recommended is to “ yoake him to 
wild bullockes that haue not laboured before.” It is well to note 
the sense in which the word “wild” is here employed. The wild 
(ara E nnn EERE EEE 
1Dalyell, in The Darker Superstitions of Scotland, 1835, p. 431, 
says :—‘‘ A prejndice against white cows has subsisted among the peasantry 
of Scotland, on account of the alleged inferiority of the milk. But its true 
source may be in some remote superstition, regarding the lawfulness of 
consuming the product of a consecrated animal.” 
After the above, Dalyell quotes several authorities on the veneration a 
white cattle, and then at p. 483 he writes—‘‘ Possibly a prejudice in 
Scotland for red cows, from the superiority of the milk, originates in 
superstition likewise.” 
