410 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



description of the forest near London, He wrote in the twelfth 



century as follows : — " Proxime patet ingens foresta, saltus 



nemorosi, ferarum latebrse, cervorum, damarum aprorum et 



ursorum sylvestrium." Then an editor added — " Variantes 



lectiones alii taurorum." 



Sparke, who edited Fitzstephen in 1772, states that the 



reading '• ursorum " was rejected by Stow, Hearne, and Leland. 



Giles, who is stated to be the best editor of Fitzstephen, has, in 



place of " ursorum," tauri sylvestres. According to the original, 



Fitzstephen's reference is to bears, or it may be intended for 



Urus if the spelling be slightly altered, but there is no indication 



that tauri sylvestres^ which really means half-wild domesticated 



cattle, was ever intended. Still, writers quote Fitzstephen as an 



authority on wild forest bulls. Matthew Paris says, in his Lives 



of the Abbotts of St. Albans, that in the district of the Chilterns 



there were wolves, boars, stags, and tauri sylvestres, and the last 



are said to be forest bulls. But we have no indication of colour, 



or whether these animals were feral or purely wild. In the 



Life oj St. Robert (a.d. 1200), published by the Roxburgh 



Club, there are the following lines : — 



" He graunte hym ane that wytles raued; 

 He had hym to hys forest fare, 

 And syke, a cowe take the thare, 

 I halde hyr wyld, maik thou hyr tame." 



I think this shows that the " wyld" forest cattle w^ere not wild 

 enough to be regarded as feral, unless the Hungarian cattle of 

 to-day be also considered to be feral — for each of these animals 

 has to be tamed and broken into work when taken from the herd, 

 which roams free and unrestricted on the plains. The wild 

 "cattel" of the early writers, I venture to think, were like the 

 cattle on Hungarian plains or on American ranches. They were 

 at first free, and had to be broken in. The unknown author of 

 a MS. on " Husbondrie," of about 1420, writes : — 



" A shorter waie — the wilde oxe with tlie tame 

 Yyoked be, to teche him liowe to doo." 



Now, his " wilde oxe " was neither white nor ferocious, for th6 



author describes him as follows : — 



"Whoos frounte is crispe and glaade, large eres are, 

 Thaire lippes and thair eon blacke as geet,^ 

 With homes stronge and streght is goode to gate. 



