314 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



and Lord Lothian used to exchange calves, according 

 to sex, with satisfaction on both sides." To this ex- 

 change it was probably owing that the Woodbastwick 

 herd increased as it did ; for it hardly conld have got 

 on so well as it did had it been wholly confined to the 

 descendants of the one cow from Gunton ; and Mr. 

 William Wigg, for many years bailiff at Woodbastwick, 

 in a letter to me, also mentions how they "used to 

 change " calves with Blickling. He also tells me that 

 " now and then there was one with ears white," and 

 that " the bulls were large, and would fat up to a great 

 weight, and had large manes." 



Such the Woodbastwick cattle were till 1840, or 

 somewhat later. For twenty years or thereabouts they 

 seem to have been kept quite pure ; then the late Mr. 

 Cator, dissatisfied with some of them coming with white 

 ears, used a Short-horn bull. The Eev. George Gilbert, 

 who visited them for me in November, 1875, will best 

 report what has since taken place, and their present 

 appearance. He says : — 



"At least as far back as 1864 a well-bred Short-horn 

 bull was in use for two years ; he was succeeded by a 

 polled son of his from one of the best-marked cows, and 

 this again by another bull bred in the herd. But, during 

 the past three seasons, the sire in use has been another 

 white pedigree Short-horn bull ; and the calves by him, 

 in 1874 and 1875, are better marked and more like the 

 Blickling cattle (substituting red for black) than were 

 the older cows. Among these last, greater divergence 

 occurs than was to be seen at Blickling ; some had large 

 red patches on the neck and fore quarters ; almost all 

 had flesh-coloured noses; not above two or three had 

 circlets round the eyes. One very old cow was certainly 



