276 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



distance scarcely shows, so far as the wild cattle are 

 concerned, the actual connexion ; for a few miles to 

 the south of Wollaton, very near indeed to it, came the 

 Forest of Charnwood, in Leicestershire, and that again 

 joined Needwood, which went up to Chartley — the small 

 town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the scene of Sir Walter 

 Scott's tournament in " Ivanhoe " — being intermediate 

 between the three. Wollaton and Chartley are both a 

 short distance only from the river Trent on its northern 

 side. 



It seems to me that this southern group of wild 

 herd retained at Wollaton, Chartley, Somerford, and 

 Lyme, were all inclined to grow to a larger size than 

 was attained by any of the cattle of the more northern 

 groups. The only herds which seem to have equalled 

 them in this respect were that at Clifford Constable 

 (situated far south of the great northern herds), and 

 perhaps those which came from Whalley Abbey, which 

 in point of locality is intermediate. 



I think we may also conclude that in the more 

 southerly herds the tendency to black was the greatest. 

 Little is to be learnt now on this point at Lyme, yet 

 even there a blue-black cow with some white, may 

 now be seen, though its sire was a Chartley bull. But 

 at Chartley and at Somerford, and — judging from the 

 unusual circumstance of their having black tips to the 

 tails — I think we may assume at Wollaton and Burton 

 Constable also, there was in the southern herds a stronger 

 disposition to black than was shown by their northern 

 congeners. In the latter the same tendency existed, but 

 it does not generally appear to have been so fully de- 

 veloped. I cannot account for the circumstance, but 

 I think it right to allude to it. 



