316 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



which appears to be for ever endeavouring to re -assert 

 itself." 



There is one point to which I wish particularly to 

 call attention. After Mr. Gilbert had most carefully 

 examined the Blickling and the Woodbastwick herds, 

 there seems to have been no point which struck him 

 more forcibly, or upon which, in his letters to me, he 

 insisted more strongly, than the essential difference 

 between these white polled cattle and the hornless 

 varieties of the Eastern Counties or of Scotland. He 

 remarks : — " It is impossible not to notice that the white 

 polled cattle both at Blickling and Woodbastwick are 

 quite distinct from the Norfolk and the Suffolk ; being 

 longer, of more tubular frame, with better shoulders, 

 deeper fore quarters, and very different hair. They are 

 as distinct from the local polled variety as is possible." 

 And again : — " I am convinced these polled cattle are 

 wholly distinct from the ordinary polled Norfolk breed, 

 and from the Gralloway or Aberdeen. They have dif- 

 ferent shape, hair, and handle ; their heads, too, are 

 unlike, and their hind quarters longer; and, though 

 they are of no unusual size now at Blickling or Wood- 

 bastwick, there are indications that the breed was the 

 largest of polled varieties, and had a long tubular frame 

 on short legs." In this opinion I cordially concur ; for 

 it should be remembered that no comparison can be 

 made between Britain's ancient white polled race as it 

 exists to-day — neglected, worn out, degenerated by 

 inter-breeding, for whom no man cares — and the 

 pampered ox of Norfolk or Aberdeen at the Smithfield 

 Show, carefully cultivated for successive generations, 

 and forced from his very birth. But go back to the 

 beginning of the century, and compare the little Grallo- 



