Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/302

278 Legh, Esq.), was, on June 30th, 1877, at an alarmingly low ebb. It consists of the following individuals: — One old bull, eleven or twelve years old, which was expected to die all through the previous winter : he is now kept in a field just above the garden, where I found him lying down in a shed. The naked part only of his nose is black ; his ears also are black, but not as decidedly so as the Chartley beasts. One bull about five years old — the individual above mentioned as brought from Chartley as a yearling. He looked scarcely so heavy in front as the two old bulls at Chartley, but another year or two may perhaps alter this. One cow, about ten years old, very little heavier in front, or lighter behind, than an ordinary cow ; nose flesh-coloured, slightly smutted with black. Ears, so far as I could see, black about one-third of their length outside, and dull reddish, or nearly black, inside. The horns come right round, downwards and inwards, the tips almost pointing to each other. This cow is said to be very bad tempered, and I was especially cautioned by the old man who has charge of them against her, so I did not go nearer to her than seventy or eighty yards, at which distance she did nothing worse than look excited, tossing her head and flourishing her tail. A boy whom I saw afterwards down at the farm told me that when another cow died, a few years since, this old cow would allow no one to come near the body for three days ; a man dressed up in woman's clothes, but to no purpose. The cow that died was one of the progeny of the old one. One black cow, rising three years — the first calf by the Chartley bull out of the old cow. This, I was assured, is the first known instance of a coloured calf being born here, and is perhaps the only coloured example which has been allowed to live in any of the herds. The first time I went to look at these cattle I passed her over, supposing her to be a tame cow turned out with them, the only thing I noticed about her being the way she threw up her head as I approached, — but I thought this was a habit she might soon have acquired in such company, — and also her fine-bred looking legs. On learning that she was a genuine wild one I returned to their run, and took more particular notice of her. She has an irregular white blaze on the forehead, a narrow line of white along the backbone, beginning a few inches in front of the withers; top of head (occiput) white; a few while hairs on crest of neck ; tail white ; brisket and belly white, the black coming