The Poets Herds. 279 



They are the Highland cattle, with their long-haired 

 ruddy coats, their bison heads, bold wild eyes peering out 

 through the overhanging locks, and horns with a menacing 

 up-lift and terribly keen at the points. 



" Mightiest of all beasts of chase 

 That roam in woody Caledon, 

 Crashing the forest in his race 

 Tiie mountain bull comes thundering on. 



Fierce, on the hunter's quivered hand 



lie rolls his eyes of swarthy glow, 

 Spurn>, with black hoof and horn, the sand, 



And tosses high his mane of snow." 



Some are coal-black, the veritable beasts of Ossian, and at 

 once suggestive of those old myths in which they figure as 

 storm clouds and malignant agencies. 



Nor are the Welsh cattle on the other side of the Hall 

 much behind them in wild picturesqueness, while that fine 

 black fellow, for ever restlessly tramping and turning his 

 horns this way and that in the vain hope of finding some- 

 thing near enough to prod, is a beast that the gladiators 

 must have found some trouble with when the Romans 

 imported British bulls for the spectacles of the amphitheatre. 

 It looks as if it could go up hill as fast as down, and is fierce 

 enough to perplex even a Texan cow-boy. But the breeder, 

 when he selects his stock, thinks of Smithfield and not of 

 the prairies, and lays his plans for the approval of the 

 Christmas judges and not of wild herds of bison. 



Yet the spectacle of a prize bullock set down in the 

 middle of a prairie, and submitted to the criticism of a herd 

 of American bison, or taken down to the source of the / 

 Congo and left alone with some old buffaloes, would be a/ 

 very interesting one. What a puzzle such a phenomenon! 

 of beef would be to them. How they would walk round/lt, 

 and snort and wonder. / 



/ 



