xvi AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 



feel confident, many if not all of our modern breeds of 

 cattle owe to some extent their present value and 

 improvement. In another generation it will perhaps be 

 too late to attempt this ; on the Continent the oppor- 

 tunity is long since past. In this country also many 

 herds have died out, and the memory of them is rapidly 

 vanishing; while the aggressiveness of the nineteenth 

 century, of modern ideas of breeding incompatible with 

 the nature of things, or neglect, are only too likely 

 to tell on those which still remain. In the time of 

 Bewick, fifteen years less than a century ago, these 

 white herds, once very numerous, as Bewick himself 

 affirms, were reduced, according to his account, to five : 

 two others, of which he gives a brief description, 

 having become extinct a few } T ears before that time. 

 Of these five herds which he mentions, three have come 

 to an end within the present century, and another is in 

 a state by no means flourishing. I hope, however, to 

 show that there were in the time of Bewick other herds 

 of the White Cattle in existence ; now, day by day, 

 those which yet remain decrease in number, and even 

 the owners of the few survivors are in some cases little 

 aware of the antiquity of their herds. It is high time 

 then that public attention should be called to these 

 interesting relics of past times, before it is too late. 



It seems, indeed, remarkable that such races have 

 survived so long as they have ; for their colour is disliked 

 by almost all British breeders, even in the central por- 

 tions of the island; while in the remoter parts — in 

 Sussex, Devon, Wales, and the Highlands of Scotland — 

 to extirpate every vestige of white in their cattle has 

 been the fashion amongst the inhabitants for ages ; and 

 in Ireland a white bull is — as indeed he would be in most 



