324 WILD WRITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



materially injured both, the estate and the castle. The 

 latter was subsequently pulled down, and the present 

 Mansion House substituted for it. This was built by 

 John, sixth Earl of Wigton. It was begun, as a date 

 affixed to a lintel shows, in 1731, and completed shortly 

 before his death, in 1744. 



I wish I were able to describe to my readers the 

 Cumbernauld wild cattle. That, however, is impossible, 

 and I must content myself with briefly sketching their 

 history — the only description of them which remains 

 being the striking account of the Scottish wild bull given 

 by Boethius and Leslie as it existed several hundreds 

 of years since, and with which, as has been already seen, 

 those writers identify the cattle of Cumbernauld. We 

 shall see, from what follows, that their statements have 

 been confirmed. In the time of James IV. the royal 

 herd at Stirling still remained, and those of the Lords 

 Fleming of Cumbernauld were still hunted by the 

 king. In Nisbet's " System of Heraldry " * we have 

 the following statement : — 



" The name of Stark, with us, has its rise from just 

 such another action as Turnbull's, but later : by saving 

 James IV. from a bull in the Forest of Cumbernauld, by 

 one of the name of Muirhead, who, for his strength was 

 called Stark ; and to show his descent from Muirhead 

 he carries the armorial figures of Muirhead with a bull's 

 head, — viz., azure, a chevron between three acorns in 

 chief or, for Muirhead, and a bull's head erased in base 

 of the second. The same is carried by John Stark, of 

 Killermont ; and for crest, a bull's head erased argent, 

 distilling drops of blood proper. Motto : — Fortiorum 

 fortia facta."—" N.R." 



* Yol. i., p. 333. 



