CATTLE IN SCOTLAND 65 



THE WILD WHITE CATTLE OF SCOTLAND 



An account of the cattle of Scotland cannot be concluded 

 without some reference to the ancient White Cattle of the 

 parks, though from the point of view of domestication, they 

 are neither flesh nor fish, neither the wild progenitors of 

 our domestic stock nor a direct link in the cjiain between 

 indigenous oxen and modern breeds. Yet they have a 

 romance of their own. There can be no doubt that this fine 

 race, with all the characteristics of its modern descendants, 

 existed in the woods of Caledonia at a very early date : 



Mightiest of all the beasts of chase, 

 That roam in woody Caledon, 

 Crashing the forest m his race, 

 The Mountain Bull comes thundering on. 

 Fierce, on the hunter's quivered band, 

 He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow, 

 Spurns with black hoof and horn the sand, 

 And tosses high his mane of snow. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



To-day the remnants of the White Cattle are preserved in a 

 few parks of which the chief are in Scotland, and in these 

 they have developed into more or less distinct races; but 

 Harting in his account of British Wild White Cattle refers 

 to twenty-two herds enclosed at one time or another by 

 Royal assent, and Rev. John Storer, in his Wild White 

 Cattle of Great Britain, records as many as "forty localities 

 where wild white cattle or their domesticated descendants 

 are proved to have existed." 



Our earliest historians regarded these White Cattle 

 "spotless bulls," as Ossian calls them, with their strange 

 black muzzles, ears and hoofs as truly wild, though it is 

 curious that all their early accounts seem to refer to animals 

 kept more or less under protection in woods and parks. "The 

 great wood" of Chillingham in Northumberland is referred 

 to as early as 1220, and in records of the year 1292, wild 

 cattle are distinctly mentioned as inhabiting it, though their 

 distinctive features are not specified. The earliest description 

 with which I am acquainted is that of Hector Boece, pub- 

 lished in 1527, which in Bellenden's translation runs: 



At this toun [Stirling] began the gret wod of Calidon. This wod of 

 Calidon ran fra Striveling throw Menteith and Stratherne to Atholl and 



