4 EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



ancestors of the wild ones, by some lucky chance, 

 had escaped the thrall of man. 



The problem of tracing the ancestry of the 

 whole was thus narrowed down to tracing that 

 of a very few, and not only from their very 

 picturesqueness, and the fact that they had never 

 been tamed, but also because they had been 

 referred to more than once in early writings, the 

 wild white cattle afforded the most attractive clue. 



The first step into the past was obvious and 

 clear : it was to a spirited description of the 

 Chillingham herd, written towards the end of the 

 eighteenth century by Mr. Bailey, of Chillingham, 

 and printed by George Culley in his '* Observa- 

 tions on Live Stock " : — 



" The wild breed, from being untameable, can 

 only be kept within walls or good fences ; conse- 

 quently very few of them are now to be met with, 

 except in the parks of some gentlemen, who keep 

 them for ornament, and as a curiosity ; those I have 

 seen are at Chillingham-Castle, in Northumber- 

 land, a seat belonging to the Earl of Tankerville. 

 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. The 

 weight of the oxen is from 35 to 45 St., and the 



