48 WILD WHITE CATTLE 



marked white bull calf in 1904, and a black bull calf in 1905), 

 they have been regularly destroyed, to preserve the character- 

 istic colour markings. The black heifer (not distinguishable 

 from one of the black South Wales breed) has a white udder 

 and spotted teats. A local legend, which holds that the 

 advent of a black calf in the herd prognosticates an impending 

 disaster to the House of Ferrers, led to the chronicling of the 

 appearance of one such off-coloured animal in 1266 and 

 another in 1321, which, with others referred to above, are to 

 all appearance striking and interesting cases of atavism. 

 The parental instincts of a cow are strong while the calf is 

 young, yet calves that have been handled by man are liable 

 to be deserted by their mothers. After a few weeks a cow 

 will permit any calf in the herd to suck her ; a fact which is 

 specially interesting, because domestic cattle rarely allow other 

 than their own calves to suck promiscuously. The calves are 

 weaned when about six months old. The average annual 

 number of calves reared about 1890 was ten. Leadbetter, a 

 butcher who bought some of the cattle, informed us in 1904 

 that for years after 1890 he killed four-year-old bullocks from 

 the park up to seven and eight score (a score = 20 Ibs.) per 

 quarter the weight mentioned by Storer thirty years ago. 

 Old cows killed and dressed to five and six score per quarter. 



Col. Congreve, the purchaser of the Chartley Park and 

 part of the estate, secured from the Duke of Bedford two 

 excellent specimens of the breed, in the cow standing over the 

 dead calf shown in Plate V., and the bull seen in the foreground 

 of the upper part of the same plate. The cow gave birth to 

 a beautiful bull calf in 1905, and with a view to recruit the 

 herd fifteeen additional cows were in 1906 put to the old bull. 

 Most of them were white cross descendants of the old breed, 

 or white varieties of the Welsh black breed, and four West- 

 Highlanders. 



During the transit of the five animals by rail to Woburn, 

 the litter in the railway waggon took fire, and two cows were 

 so injured that they succumbed to the effects of the burning. 

 The black cow and another, by no means a good specimen, 

 were so weak from the effects of tuberculosis that they were 

 considered unfit to put to the bull in 1905. The losses were 

 compensated by one calf born in 1905, and a bull calf from 

 the Zoological Gardens in London possessing 50 per cent, of 



