236 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



coming down to water. Mr. Philips and the keeper 

 tried to get round them in order to drive them nearer to 

 Mr. Chandos-Pole-Gell and myself; but they would not 

 stand this, and quickly bolted sideways. In winter, when 

 fed in the paddock, no keeper can even handle them. 



But though generally timorous and placid, there are 

 ' times when it is perilous to-approach them. King says 

 that the time when they are most dangerous is in 

 October. 



Captain Walsh told me that they were " hardly 

 ever " dangerous when together in masses, and that if 

 they approached towards you it was usually sufficient to 

 knock your stick upon the ground, and they will turn 

 tail. But he added that there was sometimes much 

 risk in coming across one by itself. Of course this risk 

 would be increased if you met a cow going to her 

 concealed calf ; and I strongly suspect that the enraged 

 bull I saw on my first visit would have quickly re- 

 venged his defeat by his rival on any one who had 

 been so unfortunate as to cross his path. 



The Chartley cows breed with great regularity, as 

 regularly as ordinary cows, and suckle their calves well ; 

 they conceal them for the first three or four days. They 

 calve at all seasons of the year, and have had calves "in 

 every month of the year ; " but evidently the spring is 

 the more usual time — for when I was there on the 1st 

 of December all the eleven cows were believed to be in 

 calf. There is no separation beyond what is mentioned 

 above ; the young heifers therefore run with the herd, 

 and generally calve at from two to two years and a half 

 old, which may partly account for the smaller size of 

 the cows, and no doubt this must partially affect the 

 size of the males also. An unusual case, alluded to 



