WILD WHITE CATTLE. 221 



or Regardors, nevertheless cannot at all be reputed 

 beasts of the forest as wild horses, bubali, wild cows, 

 and the like."* The word bubali, literally " buffaloes," 

 is considered to mean "wild bulls," being the sense 

 in which it is frequently used by Roman authors. 



Speaking of a somewhat later period, Matthew 

 Paris, in his " Lives of the Abbots of St. Albans," 

 says of Leofstan, abbot in the time of Edward the 

 Confessor, that he cut through the thick woods 

 which extended from the edge of Ciltria (the Chil- 

 terns) nearly up to London, smoothed the rough 

 places, built bridges, and levelled the rugged roads, 

 which he made more safe, "for at that time there 

 abounded throughout the whole of Ciltria spacious 

 woods, thick and large, the habitation of numerous 

 and various beasts, wolves, boars, forest bulls (tauri 

 sylvestres), and stags. 



Fitz-Stephen, writing about the year 1 1 74, de- 

 scribes the country beyond London in somewhat 

 similar terms. "Close at hand," he says, "lies an 

 immense forest, woody ranges, hiding-places of wild 

 beasts, of stags, of fallow deer, of boars, and of 

 forest bulls," and he employs the same term [tauri 

 sylvestres) to designate the wild cattle to which he 



refers, t 



Nor was this the only part of the country 

 in which these animals were at that time to be 

 found. Knaresborough Forest, for instance, in York- 



* See Manwood's "Forest Laws," §27; Thorpe's "Ancient Laws, 

 of England," vol. i. p. 429 ; and Spelman's " Glossary," p. 241. 

 t "Vita Sancti Thomas," torn. i. p. 173 (ed. Giles), 



