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Show 84 CATTLE. CIIAP. III. referred to .in a record of the year 1220. The cattle in their instincts and habits are truly wild. They are white, with tbe inside of the ears reddish-brown, eyes rimmed with black, muzzles brown, hoofs black, and horns white tipped with black. ·within a period of thirty-three years about a dozen calves were born with " brown and blue spots upon the cheeks or necks; but these, together with any defective animals, wore always destroyed." According to Bewick, about tho year 1770 some calves appeared with black ears; but these were also destroyed by the keeper, and black oars have not since reappeared. The wild white cattle in the Dnke of Hamilton's park, where I have heard of the birth of a black calf, are said by Lord Tankervillo to be inferior to those at Chmingham. The cattle kept until the year 1780 by the Duke of Quoonsborry, but now extinct, had their ears, muzzle, and orbits of the eyes black. Those which have existed from time immemorial at Chartley closely resemble the cattle at Chillingham, but are larger, "with some small difference in the colour of the ears." " They frequently tend to become entirely black; and a singular super· stition prevails in the vicinity that, when a black calf is born, some calamity impends over the noble house of Feners. All the black calves are destroyed." The cattle at Burton Constable in Yorkshire, now extinct, had ears, muzzle, and the tip of the tail black. Those at Gisburne, also in Yorkshire, are said by Bewick to have been sometimes without dark muzzles, with the inside alone of the ears brown ; and they are elsewhere said to have been low in stature and hornless.M The several above-specified differences in the park-cattle, slight though they be, are worth recording, as they show that animals living nearly in a state of nature, and exposed to nearly uniform conditions, if not allowed to roam freely and to cross with other herds, do not keep as un.iform as truly 51 I am much indebted to the present Earl of To.nkerville for information about his wild cattle ; and for tho skull which was sent to Prot: Riitimcyer. The fullest account of the Chilling ham cattle is given by Mr. llindmarsh, together with a letter by the late Lord Tankerville, in 'Anna.!s and Mag. of Nat. llist.,' vol. ii., 183D,p. 271. See Bewick, 'Quadrupeds,' 2nd edit., 1791, p. 35, note. With respect to those of the Duke of Queen~bcny, see Pennant's 'Tour in Scotland,' p. 100. For those of Chartley, see Low's 'Domesticated Animals of Britain,' 1845, p. 238. For those of Gisburne, see Bewick's ' Quadrupeds, and Eucyclop. of Rural Sports,' p. 101. CnAP. III. PARK-CATTLE. 85 wild animals. For the preservation of a uniform character even within the same park, a certain degree of selection-tha~ is, tho destruction of the dark-coloured calves-is apparently necessary. The cattle in all the parks are white; but, from the occasional appearance of dark-coloured calves, it is extremely doubtful whether the aboriginal Bos primigenius was white. The following facts, however, show that there is a strouD' thou1rh not • • bl O' b I~vana e, te~c~ency in. wild or escaped cattle, under widely d1fferent conchtwns of hfe, to become white with coloured ears. If the old writers Boethius and Leslie 52 can be trusted, the wild cattle of Scotland.wer~ white and furui heel with a great mane; but the colour of their ears is not mentioned. The primreval forest former~y extended ~cross the whole country from Chillingham to llamJlton, and S1r Walter Scott used to maintain that th~. cattle still preserved in these two parks, at the two extremitiOs of tho forest, were remnants of its oricrinal inhabitants· and this view certainly seems probable. In vVales,S3 during th~ te_nth century, some of the cattle are desci·ibed as being white w1_th red ears. Four hundred cattle thus coloured were sent to Kmg J obn; and an early record speaks of a hundred cattle with reel ears having been demanded as a compensation for some offence, but, if the cattle were of a dark or black colour, one hundred and :fifty were to be presented. The black cattle of Nor~h Wales apparently belong, as wo have seen, to the small longifrens type: and as the alternative was offered of either 150 dark cattle, or 100 white cattle with red ears, we may presume that the latter were the larger beasts, and probably belonged to the primigenius type. Y ouatt has remarked that at the_ present day, whenever cattle of the short-horn breed are whlte, the extremities of their ears are more or less tinged with red. . The cattle which ~ave run wild on the Pampas, in Texas, and m two parts of Afnca, have become of a nearly uniform dark 52 Boethius was born in 1170 . :~nnals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,' vol: u., 1839, P· 281; and vol. iv. 1849 p 421. ' . 53 Youatt on Cattle, 1831, p. 48 : See also p. 212, on short-horn cattle. Boll, in his 'British Quadrupeds,' p. 123, sta~es that, after long attending to the subJeet, he has found that white cattle invariably have coloured ears. |