VARIOUS ACCOUNTS OF TEE EEBD. 335 



the nursery, &c. He says : " Tlie white cattle had no 

 dark spots or places on them ; they were all white, 

 except perhaps when they were shedding their hair : 

 they were then slightly darker. The cattle had liberty 

 in all the parks, except those above the road, in my day, 

 but I saw them oftenest in the twenty-two acres park, 

 and sometimes got upon the top of the wall to give 

 them a fright and see them scamper away. They 

 were few in number. I remember old Willie Stevenson, 

 the herd, with the white horse on which he used to 

 visit them, and also his being nearly killed on one 

 occasion when the bull attacked him and got his head 

 under the horse." 



When one of these cattle was shot, the carcase was 

 taken in a cart to Eglinton Castle. Their savage nature 

 continued to the last, notwithstanding their confinement 

 for seventy years on bare fields enclosed by stone walls ; 

 indeed, the circumstance of their keeper being obliged 

 to approach them on horseback seems to show that they 

 were fiercer than the Chillingham or Chartley cattle. 

 At last, in 1820, shortly after the death of Earl Hugh, 

 the only survivors were two cows and a bull ; probably 

 the others had been previously slaughtered. These 

 three were sent by the then Earl of Eglinton to Duchal, 

 in Renfrewshire, as a present to Mr. Porterfield, of 

 Porterfield and Duchal. The latter place is from 

 twenty-five to thirty miles from Ardrossan, and their 

 removal was accomplished with much difficulty. Many 

 persons recollect it; and Bailie Willock, whom I have 

 just quoted, says : — " I remember the bull and two 

 cows being taken to Duchal, and the trouble there was 

 to get them removed from the parks. A number of 

 people had to be employed, and old Mr. Bartlemore was 



