352 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



prevent late calves. "When they can live on the grass 

 the cows are wholly turned out, with their calves at 

 foot, till October, when they are brought home ; the 

 calves are weaned, and the cows turned out again till 

 they are due to calve. The calves are kept in a straw 

 yard for a time till they have forgot their mothers; 

 they are turned out into a field during the day, where 

 turnips are spread for them, being brought up to the 

 yard every night, where they have hay under a shed. 

 This is done partly in order to make them as tame as 

 possible. When the cows go out for the summer, after 

 calving, the yearlings go too, and are never brought in 

 till they come due to calve, or to be sold off, as the 

 case may be. Hay is, of course, given to those out at 

 pasture in the winter near the shepherd's house. The 

 whole herd is usually pastured together, except that, 

 to avoid premature breeding, the young heifers are 

 kept separate till sometimes two, but more usually 

 three, years old ; and that during the winter season 

 the bulls graze together, separate from the cows, in 

 a field enclosed by dry stone dykes. The pasture 

 ground of the general herd consists of a range of low 

 hills, much given in the highest places to grow heather, 

 and none of it rich land. It is of considerable extent, 

 not mountainous, but wild and unreclaimed, and much 

 of it unreclaimable. It is called the Hill, and is kept 

 free of sheep all the summer ; but during the winter 

 Highland sheep, as well as the cattle, run over it 

 till April. With the exception of the rather slight 

 alteration produced by the Barcaldine bull, the cha- 

 racter of the herd is exactly that of the portion of the 

 Athole herd which came to Dalkeith. That is the 

 type which has, during the last thirty-five years, been 



