18 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Considering that there were formerly in this country 

 numerous domestic herds of white cattle, dating their ex- 

 istence from very early times, and distinct from, yet nearly 

 related to, those which were completely wild, the pre- 

 dilection of the ancients for white cattle seems a curious 

 coincidence. Everywhere these seem to have been con- 

 sidered the most select, and in all ages the most valuable 

 as sacrificial offerings on the altars of the gods. Among 

 the ancient Egyptians, though Apis himself, their bull- 

 god, was, it seems, principally black, yet it appears from 

 Herodotus that the sacrificial cattle were obliged to be 

 of the purest white. When a bull was made sacred, so 

 that he might be offered to Epaphus or Apis, " a priest 

 was appointed to examine the animal, both when it was 

 standing up, and when it was cast. If he found a 

 single black hair upon it he pronounced it to be un- 

 clean." * It appears from " Jesse's Natural History " 

 that the descendants of these cattle, a large, handsome 

 white breed, still remain in Egypt. In India, which for 

 thousands of years has preserved unaltered its religion, 

 traditions, and habits, even now the white Brahmin bull, 

 dedicated to Siva, roams at large protected from all 

 in j ury ; and while the white elephant is the pride of the 

 native princes in great state ceremonies, "the elegant 

 carriages of the ladies of the court, covered with light 

 gilded domes, from which hang silken curtains, pass 

 along, drawn by white oxen,"f as they did in ages long 

 since past. In Persia there were, we are told, a fine and 



* Herodotus, lib. ii., c. 38. Professor Rawlinson's " Herod.," vol. ii., p. 

 68. [In a note on this which Mr. Storer had probably not seen, Professor 

 Rawliuson gives it as his opinion that white was regarded as equally 

 objectionable with black. He considers that the colour of this sacred 

 bull was red. — Ed.] 



t " India and its Native Princes," by Louis Bous. 



