THE WHITE CATTLE OF CADZOW. 245 
wild ox, Bos scoticHs ; by others — with perhaps greater proba- 
bility — as sprung from the ordinary domestic stock gone wild. 
The Cadzow cattle have turned-up, black-tipped horns ; are 
well-proportioned ; in colour, a creamy white with black mark- 
ings — the muzzles, the eyes, the ears, the hoofs, and the forelegs, 
up nearly to the knee, being black. This uniformity in the 
markings is owing to the fact that all calves not properly 
marked are separated from the herd and killed. 
It is somewhat difficult to approach near enough the herd 
to examine the animals closely, for on the approach of man they 
trot off in a body to what they consider a safe distance ; if the 
intruder press them too hard, wheeling round and forming 
into a line, they charge down upon him in a body, but halt 
when about twenty yards distant and again retreat. The object 
of this hostile demonstration had, however, better take his de- 
parture without delay, or the cattle will make a grand final 
charge, from which escape will be well-nigh impossible. Sir 
Walter Scott’s description of the cattle, in his fine ballad Cadzou 
Castle, is well worth quoting : — 
“Through the huge oaks of Evandale, 
Whose limbs a thousand years have worn, 
What sullen roar comes down the gale, 
And drowns the hunter’s pealing horn ? 
“ Mightiest of all the beasts of chase, 
That roam in woody Caledon, 
Crashing the forest in his race. 
The mountain bull comes thundering on. 
“ Fierce, on the hunter’s quiver’d band. 
He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow. 
Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand, 
And tosses high his mane of snow.” 
It is interesting, although disappointing, to note that Scott,, 
notwithstanding his having spent the Christmas of 1801 at 
Hamilton Palace, never saw the wild cattle. 
About 1760 the Hamilton herd had been extirpated on account 
of its ferocity, and not till 1809 do we hear of white cattle brows- 
ing in Cadzow Forest. Whence the park was restocked is 
somewhat of a mystery ; but it has been surmised that it was 
from a portion of the Ardrossan herd belonging to the Earl of 
Eglinton, which about that time was dispersed, and which is 
believed to have descended from the former Cadzow one. About 
1840 the Cadzow herd seems to have been polled ; but now, 
without exception, it is horned. 
In 1866 the herd narrowly escaped extinction through the 
outbreak of rinderpest. A few young animals were hidden in the 
deep gorge of the Avon, and from these survivors — eight in all, 
and only one bull — the present herd is descended. 
In 1884, it having been deemed advisable that new blood 
should be infused into the herd, a bull was obtained from Kil- 
mory. The calves born were, however, off the markings and 
