560 



BOS. 



tive of which there is no satisfactory evidence, is that 

 it is native in those places. Analogy is against such 

 a position : it is well known that deer in a native 

 state were, up to a comparatively recent period, nu- 

 merous in many of the wild woods of the island ; 

 that they are now thinned ; that the artificial parks 

 which contain deer, and even the hill forest?, such as 

 that of the Duke of Atholl, between Blair and 

 Badenoch, have been stocked by artificial means ; 

 and that the remains of the red deer have taken up 

 their final abode in the very wildest part of the 

 island, the north-western part of Invernesshirc, where, 

 from rough mountain and interspersed marsh, the 

 surface is peculiarly uninteresting to human travellers. 

 These are as much natural fastnesses, though of a 

 different character, as those in which the remainder 

 of the bisons have taken up their final abode in 

 central Europe. It is, therefore, unreasonable to 

 conclude from analogy that, if there had been 

 any actual remains of a wild breed of cattle in Britain, 

 they would have been found in the wild plains, and 

 not as ornamental stock in the parks of the great. 

 There must therefore be " some mistake," about the 

 white cattle, and the sooner that it can be removed 

 the better. 



That the colour of these animals is nearly entire 

 (it is not wholly so, as they all have the muzzle and the 

 tips of the horns black, and those at Burton Con- 

 stable have the tips of the ears and tail black also,) 

 is not a proof that they are an original race, which 

 has never been broken into varieties by domestica- 

 tion ; for when domesticated cattle, with broken 

 colours, continue for some generations exposed to 

 the weather all the year round, they return to an 

 entire colour, varying in a number of shades from 

 black to dun ; and hence the cattle which are bred in 

 the Scotch highlands, have the colour generally un- 

 broken, and black is so much the prevailing shade, 

 that they are known to dealers by the general name 

 of "black cattle." 



Before, therefore, we can rationally conclude that 

 the white cattle are a native race that has never been 

 domesticated, and not a domesticated race which has 

 run wild, we must examine what there has been in 

 the progressive history of the places in which they 

 are found, that may bear on the one conclusion or 

 the other. For as this genus of animals has had a 

 powerful influence upon the progress of human so- 

 ciety ; and as all natural action is in so far reciprocal 

 and mutual, we may very naturally suppose that the 

 state of human society, and the change which that 

 has produced upon the country, must have had a 

 considerable influence upon the character of the 

 animals. 



Now both England and Scotland, for some distance 

 from the border, have been for a long period previous 

 to the union, in a very different state from the more 

 remote parts of the countries, and even from a por- 

 tion upon the confines. The two nations were very 

 often at opeh war with each other, and they were 

 never cordial friends ; and the inhabitants of the 

 border, who consisted of a considerable number of 

 expelled men from each country, were the friends of 

 neither, and the pretended partisans of the one or 

 the other, according as they found it more suited to 

 their own predatory habits. Their " forays," or 

 inroads, were carried on chiefly for the purposes of 

 plunder ; and as the portion of Scotland near the 

 border was a poor country, and the court, and army 



such as it was, were too near for rendering frequent 

 forays into the Lothians safe, unless for larger bodies 

 of men than the border rubbers could muster, for 

 people of that description never can combine to any 

 great extent, the depredations were most generally 

 carried on in England ; and in that country there 

 necessarily was a considerable space within the 

 border, where men cultivating the arts of peace 

 could not dwell in safety. The better part of this 

 would naturally get overrun with wood or with cop- 

 pice ; and the same would also be the case with a 

 part of Scotland, though to a less extent. Cattle 

 formed the principal booty in these predatory incur- 

 sions ; these cattle had to be driven through the 

 pathless and uninhabited parts of the country ; and 

 as the marauders had often to make hasty retreats, 

 and not unfrequently abandon their plunder and 

 defend themselves, it is natural to suppose that the 

 cattle might not unfrequently escape into the wilds ; 

 and many of them might remain and breed there 

 till they returned to the entire colour from constant 

 exposure to the weather. This seems the most rational 

 mode of accounting for the existence of the wild 

 cattle in these localities ; at least this hypothesis 

 would require to be encountered by very forcible argu- 

 ment before that of an aboriginal breed, in favour of 

 which there is neither proof nor probability, could 

 claim that implicit credence which it has pretty 

 generally received from those who have written on 

 the subject. 



We may farther remark that the usual accounts 

 of these animals do not assert that, they are abori- 

 ginal in the artificial parks ; but that they were 

 obtained much in the same way, as no inconsiderable 

 portions of the estates of those who became their 

 owners, that is, they were gotten from the religious 

 houses when those were broken up at the Reforma- 

 tion. This part of the history, if authentic, and there 

 is much more probability on its side than against it, 

 is decisive of the whole case of those white oxen ; 

 and not only so, for it renders the whole hypothesis 

 of the species (and it is only a hypothesis, not only 

 doubtful, but evidently fabulous). The monks and 

 others, connected with the religious establishments, 

 brought fruits and flowers from Italy for the orna- 

 menting of their gardens ; and it is natural to suppose, 

 nay it is impossible not to suppose, that they brought 

 cattle from the same country to stock their parks and 

 dairies ; and that such has been the fact, and the 

 origin of those cattle, is placed beyond all doubt, by 

 the cattle of the finer parts of Italy, especially those 

 of the valley of Arno, being white from the time of 

 the ancient Romans, and remaining so at the present 

 time. They are an excellent breed, and highly pri/.cd 

 in the West India islands, to which numbers of them 

 were once sent, if there are not so still. It is pro- 

 bable that all those breeds of cattle which have much 

 white in them have been obtained by crosses with 

 those Italian cattle obtained in the manner above 

 stated ; and this is rendered more probable by their 

 being more delicate than those of a darker tint. 

 This origin of the white cattle, does not in the least 

 invalidate the ground of their being sometimes found 

 in the woods, or even remaining there as strays from 

 the marauders ; for the religious houses were always 

 favourite objects of attack. 



The annexed figure, which represents an adult 

 male, after he has attained that age at which the hair 

 on the ridge of the neck becomes prominent and 



