Towns > Hamilton > 1878-79 - Naismith's Hamilton directory for 1878-79, including Bothwell, Blantyre, Uddingston, Motherwell, and Larkhall to which is added, A history of Hamilton and neighbourhood

THE OAKS AND WILD CATTLE. 47
also located here. The walls of the chief apartments
exhibit exquisite specimens of French decorative art,
of the era of Louis Quatorze, in wood-carving and
stucco. The truth-to-nature, lightness, delicacy, and
elegance of these plaster pictures are exceedingly
pleasing and impressive. They consist of scenes of
rural life, of fruits and flowers, of mythologic figures,
and others
Smacking of Flora and the country green,
Dance and provencal song, and sunburnt mirth.
THE OAKS AND ABOEIGINAL BSEED OF CATTLE.
The A^enerable oaks of Cadzow — the remains of the
great Caledonian forest, which in olden times ex-
tended over the whole of upper Clydesdale and the
valley of the Tweed as far as the English Border — are
well-known to all lovers of leafy solitudes, for their
boundless contiguity of shade. But besides the
ancient ruin of Cadzow Castle, which overhangs the
steep banks of the Avon, this umbrageous forest
affords shelter to other relics of the past, in the shape
of the last surviving descendants of the wild cattle
that formerly roamed through the forest solitudes of
Northern Britain. Their claim to be the last of the
race is perhaps shared with the white cattle at Chil-
lingham, in Northumberland, but owing to the erratic
fancy of a park-keeper about the beginning of the
present century, the sjDecific distinction of black
muzzles and ears, which are the beauty of the Cadzow
cattle, was weeded out from the Chillingham herd —
preference being given to an accidental pink-eared
strain. Formerly herds of these white wild cattle
existed at Gisburne, at Wollaton, at Chartley, and in
the chase of Drumlanrig — all of them possessing the
distinguishing characteristic of black ears and muzzle.
But these have gradually disappeared. Sir Walter