enough—the whole herd were alarmed, and, coming to its rescue, obliged him to retire; for the dams will allow no persons to touch their calves, without attacking them with impetuous ferocity."
The next step was longer, but it was none the less obvious. It was to the wild cattle roaming the forest in unstinted freedom before the Norman barons or their successors took to enclosing parks for the preservation of game. Mediaeval conditions lingered longest in some parts of Scotland, and thence about 1526 from the pen of Hector Boece, came the picture that fascinated the imagination and indicated the path to be followed if the ancestors of the wild white cattle were to be found.
"At this toun began the grit wod of Calidon.[1] This wod of Calidon ran fra Striveling, throw Menteith and Stratherne, to Atholl and Lochquabir, as Ptolome writtis in his first table. In this wod wes sum time quhit bullis, with crisp and curland mane, like feirs lionis, and thoucht they semit meek and tame in the remanent figure of thair bodyis, thay wer mair wild than ony uthir beistis, and had sic hatrent aganis the societe and cumpany of men, that thay come nevir in the wodis, nor lesuris quhair thay fand ony feit or haind thairof, any mony dayis eftir,
- ↑ Bellenden's translation. See Low's "Domesticated Animals," p. 234.
