617 



BOVIDJE. 



BOVID/E. 



613 



nature. But whenever this has happened they, if they escape, become 

 more cautious for the future, and acquire a certain kind of experi- 

 ence ; and he instances the Monk's-Hood (Aconitum), which grows 

 near Fahluna, and is generally left untouched by all the animals that 

 are accustomed to these places ; but if foreign cattle are brought 

 thither and meet with this vegetable, they venture to take too large 

 a quantity of it, and are killed. He adds that the cattle that have 

 been reared in the plains of Schonen and Westragothia commonly fall 

 into a dysentery when they come into the woodland parts, because 

 they feed upon Borne plants which the cattle used to those places have 

 learned to avoid. Meadow-Saffron (Colchicum autumnale) is among 

 the plants deleterious to oxen if taken in any large quantity, and 

 Hellebore (Hetteborus) is also said to be poisonous to them. Yew 

 (Taxm baccata) is fatal, as it is to herbivorous quadrupeds generally, 

 the green temptation being probably too strong for cattle kept on short 

 allowance. Actions-at-law in this country have not been uncommon 

 against a defendant for not keeping up bounds or hedges whereby the 

 plaintiff's cattle strayed into places where yew-trees grew, fed on the 

 branches, and so died. 



The period of gestation of the cow is nine months. The normal 

 number of the offspring is one, though there are not uncommon 

 instances of the cow bringing forth twins, and rare cases of her pro- 

 ducing three and even more at a birth. In the case of twins, if they 

 be male and female apparently, the apparent female is generally barren, 

 and is called a Free Martin (Taum probably of Columella, Varro, and 

 the ancient Romans). 



Mr. Jesse ('Gleanings of Natural History,' 1838) states that if the 

 cow has twins, one of them a male and the other a female, the latter 

 is always barren ; but this is an error. "It is a fact known and I 

 believe almost universally understood," writes John Hunter in his 

 ' Account of the Free Martin,' " that when a cow brings forth two 

 calves, and one of them a bull-calf, and the other to appearance a cow, 

 that the cow-calf is unfit for propagation, but the bull-calf grows up 

 into a very proper bull. Such a cow-calf is called in this country a 

 Free Martin, and is commonly as well known among the farmers as 

 either cow or bull Although it will appear from the description of 

 this animal that it is a hermaphrodite (being in no respect different 

 from other hermaphrodites), yet I shall retain the term free martin to 

 distinguish the hermaphrodite produced in this way from those which 

 resemble the hermaphrodite of other unimala ; for I know that in black 

 cattle such a deviation may be produced without the circumstance of 

 twins, and even where there are twins, the one a male the other a 

 female, they may both have the organs of generation perfectly 

 formed." 



Professor Owen in his valuable edition of Hunter's ' Observations' 

 (1837) adds a note from London's ' Magazine of Natural History :' 

 which states that Joseph Holroyd, Esq., of Withers, near Leeds, had 

 a cow which calved twins, a bull-calf and a cow-calf. As popular 

 opinion was against the cow-calf breeding, it being considered a Free 

 Martin, Mr. Holroyd was determined to make an experiment of them, 

 and reared them together. In due time the heifer brought forth a 

 bull-calf, and she regularly had calves for six or seven years after- 

 wards. Nor are there wanting other cases of fertility under similar 

 circumstances. 



When a cow has twins and they are both bull-calves the calves are 

 in every respect perfect bulls, and if cow-calves they are both perfect 

 cowa. 



In the ' Nouveau Bulletin des Sciences ' is given an account of a 

 cow which produced nine calves at three successive births : first, four 

 cow-calves, hi 1817 ; second, three, two of them females, in 1818 ; 

 third, two females, in 1819. With the exception of two belonging to 

 the first birth all were nursed by the mother. 



The origin of our present breeds of domestic cattle has been a sub- 

 ject of much difference of opinion, arising from the existence of certain 

 cattle in an apparently wild condition, and which have been supposed 

 to be descendants of the gigantic Urat described by Ctcsar as existing 

 in England during the Human invasion. The existence also of the 

 remains of the Bison (Binon pritcui) [ BISON] in the Tertiary Beds of 

 Great Britain have also served to confuse this question. As this ques- 

 tion is not yet perhaps generally regarded as settled, we shall give the 

 opinion i of some of those who have written on the subject. 



Colonel Hamilton Smith, who appears to have taken considerable 

 pains in investigating the history of the Jtuminantia generally, and of 

 the Bovine family particularly, places the fossil species (Bos /n-imi- 

 genlut, Bojanus and Owen) under Bo (Taurut) Ifriu, considering the 

 wild cattle of Chillingham and other parks as the white variety. 



Mr. Swainson, in his ' Classification of Quadrupeds,' observes that 

 all writers agree that the large skulls of oxen found in the more recent 

 formations belonged to a formidable race of these animals which 

 existed in Britain in a wild state ; that they belonged without doubt 

 to the species named Una by Csesar and other ancient writers ; and 

 that these skulls not only possess a specific distinction, but exhibit the 

 type of a form essentially different from that of the Domestic Ox. 

 " All these skulls," he continues, " are nearly one-third larger than 

 those of the flux Taurui ; they are square from the orbits to the occi- 

 pital crest, and somewhat hollow at the forehead. The horns, placed 

 at the side of the above crest, show a peculiar rise from their roots 

 upwards ; then bending outwards, and then forwards and inwards. 



No domestic races show this turn ; but numerous specimens of infe- 

 rior sizes, found fossil in the Cornish mines, have this shape, and the 

 wild bull of Scotland, the only example of this type now known to 

 exist, retains it. The domestic oxen, on the contrary, of whatsoever 

 country or breed they may be, have the square concave forehead, with 

 the horns rising from the ends of the frontal ridge. . . . It appears 

 then that the ancient L'nu, or Wild Bull, was a perfectly wild, savage, 

 and untameable animal. Not only does every account handed down 

 from remote antiquity assure us of this, but it is even verified by the 

 only living example of this form we possess, the Bos Scoticus, still pre- 

 served in one or two of the northern parks. Although domesticated 

 so far as to live within such precincts without absolute unprovoked 

 violence to its keepers, it retains essentially all the savage characters 

 ascribed to the more powerful species mentioned by the ancients. 

 Like that also it possesses when at a mature age a kind of maue about 

 two inches long, and its throat and breast are covered with coarse hair. 

 These characters, which are never found in the domesticated breeds 

 of oxen, were no doubt much more highly developed in the ancient 

 I/Vets. The second type is the domestic ox ; the external characters 

 of which, to use the words of Colonel Smith, are ' absolutely the same 

 as the fossil Urus, and the wild breeds differ only in the flexure of 

 the horns." But though these two types come so near each other in 

 external appearance, nothing can be more different than their moral 

 character ; the Urm, wild, savage, and untameable, remains with all 

 these propensities unimpaired and uudiminished from the period of 

 its first creation down to the present day. The other, tame, harmless, 

 and enduring, has voluntarily submitted to the service of man from 

 the most remote antiquity, and seems to have been a companion of 

 the earliest inhabitants of the earth." 



The allusion here to the os Scoticun, the name for the Chillingham 

 and other wild cattle of this country, is hardly correct. Mr. Vasey, a 

 recent observer, says, in his ' Ox-Tribe,' that they do not exhibit more 

 wildness than most domesticated animals when allowed to roam without 

 restraint; and that their young, when properly reared, are as docile 

 as those of the ordinary domestic cattle. Nor do they possess a mane, 

 as has been frequently asserted. The wild cattle breed with the 

 domestic cattle. The cow goes the same period with young. They 

 have the same number of ribs, and even their white colour at Chil- 

 lingham is the result of the destruction by order of the owner of all 

 spotted calves that are produced. The following account is given by 

 Mr. Culley, in Bewick, and, as an early description of these animals, is 

 interesting ; but it is evidently highly coloured, and has misled those 

 who have relied upon it : 



" Their colour is invariably of a creamy white, muzzle black ; the 

 whole of the inside of the ear, and about one-third of the outside, 

 from the tips downwards, red ; horns white with black tips, very fine 

 and bent upwards ; some of the bulls have a thin upright mane, about 

 an inch and a half or two inches long. At the first appearance of any 

 person they set off in full gallop, and at the distance of two or three 

 hundred yards make a wheel round, and come boldly up again, tossing 

 their heads in a menacing manner : on a sudden they make a full stop, 

 at the distance of forty or fifty yards, looking wildly at the object of 

 then- surprise ; but upon the least motion being made, they all again 

 turn round and fly off with equal speed, but not to the same distance ; 

 forming a shorter circle and again returning with a bolder and nic.ro 

 threatening aspect than before, they approach much nearer, probably 

 within thirty yards, when they make another stand, and again fly off ; 

 this they do several times, shortening their distance and advancing 

 nearer till they come within ten yards, when most people think it 

 prudent to leave them, not choosing to provoke them further ; for 

 there is little doubt but in two or three turns more they would make 

 an attack. The mode of killing them was perhaps the only modern 

 remains of the grandeur of ancient hunting. On notice being given 

 that a wild bull would be killed on a certain day, the inhabitants of 

 the neighbourhood came armed with guns, &c., sometimes to the 

 amount of a hundred horse, and four or five hundred foot, who stood 

 upon walls or got into trees, while the horsemen rode off the bull from 

 the rest of the herd, until he stood at bay, when a marksman dis- 

 mounted and shot. At some of these huntings twenty or thirty shots 

 have been fired before he was subdued. On such occasions the bleed- 

 ing victim grew desperately furious from the smarting of his wounds 

 and the shouts of savage joy that were echoing from every side ; but 

 from the number of accidents that happened this dangerous mode has 

 been little practised of late years, the park-keeper alone generally 

 shooting them with a rifled gun at one shot. When the cows calve 

 they hide their calves for a week or ten days in some sequestered 

 situation, and go and suckle them two or three times a day. If any 

 person come near the calves, they clap their heads close to the ground, 

 and lie like a hare in form to hide themselves : this is a proof of their 

 native wildness, and is corroborated by the following circumstance 

 that happaned to the writer of this narrative, who found a hidden 

 calf, two days old, very lean and very weak. On stroking its head it 

 got up, pawed two or three times like an old bull, bellowed very loud, 

 stepped back a few steps, and bolted at hi legs with all its force ; it 

 then began to paw again, bellowed, stepped back, and bolted as before ; 

 but knowing its intention, and stepping aside, it missed him, fell, and 

 was so very weak that it could not rise, though it made several efforts. 

 But it had done enough, the whole herd were alarmed, and coming to 



