124 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



ancient history and then state of the wild cattle, and 

 calls them " the descendants of the savage herds which 

 anciently roamed free in the Caledonian forests." Many 

 of my readers will remember the life-like description 

 which follows of the wild bull, " stimulated either by 

 the scarlet colour of Miss Ashton's mantle, or by one of 

 those fits of capricious ferocity to which their disposi- 

 tions are liable," detaching himself suddenly from the 

 group with which he was feeding, and approaching 

 " the intruders on his pasture ground, at first slowly, 

 pawing the ground with his hoof, bellowing from time 

 to time, and tearing up the sand with his horns, as if 

 to lash himself up to rage and violence ;" and how at 

 last he pursued at full speed the unfortunate lord 

 keeper and his daughter. 



The last quotation I shall give is peculiarly striking, 

 not so much as alluding to the wild cattle, for " Dun- 

 craggan's milk-white bull" is not represented as being 

 of this race, though the poet, when describing him as 

 " so fierce, so tameless, and so fleet," wishes, I think, 

 to indicate his descent from or relationship to it. 

 But its peculiar value consists in the description of an 

 ancient custom, which assumed the character of a reli- 

 gious rite, and which had come down from the times 

 of the Druids ; the rite being accompanied — as was the 

 custom among the Druids themselves in their most 

 important ceremonies — by the slaughter of a white bull. 

 I can scarcely doubt that Sir Walter had all this in 

 his mind when he wrote — 



" It is, because last evening-tide 

 Brian an augury hath tried, 

 Of that dread kind which must not be 

 Unless in dread extremity, 



