128 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



were bred formerly throughout all that wood, they are 

 only found now in one part of it, called Cumbernauld, 

 having been universally slaughtered in all others by 

 the gluttonous lust of man." 



It has been the fashion among some eminent men to 

 consider this account exaggerated, and the writer him- 

 self credulous,* and an instance has been given of his 

 relating an absurd story of a " terrible beast " which in 

 the year 1510, came out of "a loch of Argyle ;" but 

 it should be remembered that this improbable narra- 

 tive was given, not on his own authority, but on that 

 of Sir Duncan Campbell. It must indeed be admitted 

 that the early writers of all nations have been too 

 credulous, and too apt to embrace without hesitation 

 or examination any popular story which was handed 

 down to them. Every age has its literary errors ; and 

 perhaps that of our own age is a species of stilted 

 scepticism which leads many to deny the truth 01 

 every historical circumstance that cannot be proved by 

 written evidence, and to reject all testimony, however 

 cumulative, which is merely circumstantial. But in 

 this case the statement of Boethius with regard to the 

 mountain bull of Scotland will bear the strictest and 

 closest examination. It has an unmistakable likeness 

 to Csesar's description of the Urus in the Hyrcinian 

 Forest, and a comparison of the two is in favour of 

 Boethius. Each described an animal living when he 

 wrote; but Caesar one in a country remote from his 



* So Dr. Bobertson, the learned historian of Scotland, prononnced 

 Boethius to be; hut then he seems to have been quite incapable of 

 estimating the value of antiquarian researches, for he intimates that 

 early Scottish history " ought to be totally neglected, or abandoned to 

 the industry and credulity of antiquaries." (" History of Scotland,' 1 

 book i.) 



