BOETHIUS CORROBORATED. 131 



Chillingliam cattle, says : — " Their sense of smell is 

 exceedingly acute, and a cow has been seen to run to 

 a man's foot like a sleuth-hound when he had run for 

 his life to a tree." * The same accurate observer 

 informs us that if a Chillingham calf " has been 

 housed, it takes nearly two months to take off the 

 tame smell." 



And a most remarkable instance of this kind has 

 come to my knowledge lately. I am informed by 

 Mr. Jacob Wilson, the steward of the Chillingham 

 estate, that for experimental purposes a domestic cow 

 was, a short time since, introduced to one of the Chilling- 

 ham bulls under the most favourable circumstances. 

 Though she was quite prepared to give him encourage- 

 ment, he would take no notice whatever of her, and the 

 Chillingham people ascribed this curious result to one 

 thing only : that she had lately been handled by man, 

 and that the wild bull could not endure that smell. f 

 Nothing can more completely confirm the truth of the 

 record of Boethius, or show how intensely abhorrent to 

 the wild cattle is the scent of man. It may be admitted, 

 indeed, that these and other instances of their ferocity 

 and wildness do not necessarily establish their aboriginal 

 wild origin, for undoubtedly domestic cattle which had 

 become feral, and continued so through many successive 

 generations, would regain this and other characteristics 



* " Saddle and Sirloin," chap, vi., p. 137. 



f This experiment has since been repeated, and more successfully. 

 A wild bull (captured for the purpose) was in the autumn of 1876 in- 

 troduced to two or three Short-horn females. At first he showed a dis- 

 position to kill one or two of them. In the end, a heifer was left with 

 him for three weeks, at the end of which time — owing, it is supposed, 

 to the smell of man having passed off — he took to her. From this and 

 subsequent similar experiments, some young animals resulted, a description 

 of which is given at p. 217. — Ed. 



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