Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/301

Rh year-old bull; one five-year-old bull; one bullock; five or six young bulls of different ages; two young bull-calves (one called two months old, the other two or three weeks, at the date of my visit); the remaining nine or ten being cows and heifers of various ages. They breed at any time of the year, but more calves are said to be born during the spring than at other times. Black calves appear to be of frequent occurrence, but they are always killed. Two such were born last winter (probably about the end of January). My conductor, Abel (an old man who had been there all his life), told me that when a calf other than white is dropped it is invariably entirely black, and never either piebald or of any other colour than black. The cattle are extremely quiet, and Abel did not seem to remember any instance to the contrary, except naturally when one had been caught up, &c. They feed them in a pen in the winter, giving them the best hay ; the young ones are taken up before the older animals. Abel said there was a sort of legend that the herd could not be got up beyond twenty-one head, so the present Earl's father set to work to try the experiment,, and succeeded in getting the number up to forty, thereby proving the legend to be "all a tale." The park is 1000 acres, and contains, besides the cattle, red and fallow deer, and about forty horses are turned out into it. I went up to the Hall to look at what heads there might be stuffed. Measurements of heads of all the four herds will be found together at the end. With respect to the mane that wild bulls were formerly credited with, the idea perhaps arose from the necks of the old bulls being of a darker shade of dirty white or cream-colour, than their bodies, and a very few longer hairs appearing on their crest and dewlap. The direction of the horns of this herd is peculiar; those of the full-grown bulls go rather out and very much down, and then turn upwards and out- wards. The cows' horns go nearly straight outwards on each side and also bend somewhat downwards at their base. Some time ago' they exchanged a yearling bull with Lyme, but the one received in exchange was so different looking that they would not breed from him, and finally killed him. Two years ago they bred a female calf between a wild bull and common cow (I do not know her colour). The heifer is said to be almost exactly like the wild cattle. I only obtained a distant view of her: it struck me that she was of a brighter white than ordinary white cattle.

Lyme.—The herd al Lyme Park, Cheshire (the seat of W.J.