CHAP. I. HERDS OF WILD CATTLE. 11 



exchanged with the Blickling herd (Marchioness of Lothian's), and the 

 cross succeeded fairly well, a peculiarity in the strain being that many 

 are born with the ears square-tipped, as if the animal had been marked 

 by cropping. About 1879 a young bull was exchanged with the Wood- 

 bastwick herd (Mr. A. Gator's); this bull was brown pointed, but threw 

 calves with red ears and muzzles, which were the first so marked known 

 to have occurred at Somerford. Of the cows and heifers in the Somer- 

 ford herd, eleven have either very little black fleckings about the body, 

 or even none at all; while about six have a good deal of black in 

 thickly grouped fleckings, spots, and small patches. One cow, about ten 

 years old in 1887, was described as a blue roan, black and white hairs 

 being placed almost alternately over the greater portion of her body, 

 giving her a blue-grey colouration. The fronts of her fore-legs below 

 the knees were black, and so was th whole outside of her ears, instead 

 of, as usual, only one-third or a half at the distal end being thus marked ; 

 this cow was giving twenty -four quarts of milk per day. Another cow was 

 red pointed, and slightly flecked on the neck with the same colour. The 

 black on the nose in most of the cattle extended evenly round the whole 

 muzzle, including the under jaw, but some had merel} r the naked part 

 of the nose black, and in one or two even this was rusty coloured and 

 not perfectly black. All, excepting the red-pointed cow, had a narrow 

 rim of black round the eyes. The animals with the least black about 

 them appear to have the finest bone and the smallest heads; this may be 

 following the old strain, while the others perhaps more nearly follow 

 the cross-strains. The red-pointed cow and one of the quite white 

 ones had small knobs or excrescences on either side of the frontal 

 bone, like budding horns, but they did not protrude through the skin. 

 One of the handsomest of the cows was almost entirely white, and was 

 the daughter of a cow that died in 1887 at the extraordinary age of 

 twenty-three years ; at Chillingham they rarely reach ten years. She 

 was very dark, although of the old strain, and had withstood infection 

 during the cattle-plague epidemic. 



The bulls appeared to be very strongly made, very broad across the 

 thighs, short on the legs, and with remarkably broad thick-set heads. 

 They were plentifully flecked with black, and in the younger of the two 

 the fleckings extended to the lower part of the face, while the black on 

 his muzzle was broader than in probably any other example of pai'k cattle. 

 The cows produce their first calves when from two years to two-and-a- 

 half years old. The bulls run with the herd throughout the year, but, 

 in order that the birth of calves may be in some degree regulated, indi- 

 vidual cows are temporarily shut up. .The udders of the cows here are 

 as large as 'those of ordinary domestic cowsj but this is not the case in 

 the herds which are not milked. In winter all the cattle, especially the 

 bulls, develop long hair on the poll and neck, which divides along the 

 central line and covers them like a mane. The hairs decrease in length 

 backwards to the withers, where they cease somewhat abruptly. About 

 180 acres of the park are allotted to the cattle ; it consists of excellent 

 upland turf sloping down to the Eiver Dane. In winter the cattle are 

 housed at night, and supplied with hay. 



