164 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



eat very much at night, and mostly in company, and 

 are of a more tawny shade than the cows, as they fling 

 the dirt very much over their shoulders when they kneel 

 to challenge.* Both sexes have black nostrils, horns 

 tipped with black, and a little red within the ears ; and 

 in their general look they partake of the Charolais and 

 Highlander combined. Their offal is rather coarse, f 

 and they have sometimes a tendency to be high on the 

 tail as well as upright on the shoulder. Like Highland 

 herds going along a road, they are subject to panics, and 

 two gallops in the course of a week, one season, owing 

 perhaps to the rustling of deer near them, cost nearly 

 every cow her calf. The calves are dropped in the fern, 

 but they are sad little Tartars ; and if they have been 

 housed it takes nearly two months to take off the tame 

 smell. Their sense of smell is exceedingly acute, and a 

 cow has been seen to run a man's foot like a sleuth- 

 hound when he had run for his life to a tree. While 

 Sir Edwin Landseer was taking sketches for his cele- 

 brated pictures, the herd went into action, and he was 

 glad to fly to the forest as they passed by." 



* It is rather owing to the dirt, which, like all other cattle, they paw 

 up in hot weather, finding a lodgment among the more abundant and 

 mane-like hair of their fore-quarters. 



t This is a great mistake ; their offal is most wonderfully light. 



