126 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



in Paris in 1526-7 ; that is, exactly three hundred and 

 fifty years since ; but as he was then fifty-six, having 

 been born in 1470, his personal recollections must 

 have gone back to a time nearly four hundred } r ears 

 antecedent to the present. 



Boethius was a contemporary of Leland, whose 

 journeys throughout England commenced a few years 

 later, and who alludes to the wild bulls in that country. 

 The celebrated passage in the work of Boethius in 

 which reference is made to them is as follows : — * 



"Near to Argyle and Lennox, in the midst of Scot- 

 land, lies the district of Stirling and Monteith, not far 

 from which is the town of the same name — Stirling — 

 with its very strong castle, called sometime the Dolorous 

 Mountain. Here formerly was the commencement of 

 the Caledonian Wood, the ancient names of Callander 

 and Calder still remaining ; it covered a great tract of 

 country, running through Monteith and Strathearn, as 

 far as Athol and Lochaber. That wood used to 

 produce bulls of the purest white, having manes like 

 that of the lion ; and though in other parts of the body 

 they very much resembled tame cattle, they were still 

 so wild and untamable, and so desirous to avoid all 

 intercourse with man, that when they perceived that 

 any herbs, trees, or fruits had been touched by man's 

 hand, they fled from them for many succeeding days. 

 When captured skilfully (which, however, is a most 



* " Scotorum Historise," &c. : Paris, 1574, fols. xi. and xii. I have, 

 however, collated it with the first edition, Paris, 1526. This work of 

 Boethius was translated into the Scottish vernacular by John Bellen- 

 den, Archdeacon of Moray, in 1553, and into English by Raphael Hol- 

 linshed, in 1585 ; but in both cases so unliterally, that I have ventured 

 to give, both in this passage from Boethius, and in those which follov 

 from Bishop Leslie, my own translation. 



