46 THE MAMMALIA. 



disappeared as the American bison is now disappearing. The 

 wild bull survived to a late historical period, and was one of the 

 most dreaded /trrt? naturcE of Scotland. 



'* Mightiest of all the beasts of chace 

 That roam in woody Caledon, 

 Crashing the forest in his race, 

 The mountain bull comes thundering on," 



sings Sir Walter Scott. 



It is doubtful whether the wild cattle preserved in Chillingham 

 Park are degenerate descendants of the mighty Urus {Bos primi- 

 genius), or only the offspring of a domestic breed run wild. Their 

 comparatively small size and evident tendency to vary in colour 

 seem to point out the latter as the more probable view. A Welsh 

 breed, white with red ears, similar to the Chillingham cattle, 

 existed in Wales in the loth century. Welsh chroniclers relate 

 that the anger of King John was once appeased by a gift of 1,400 

 of these white cattle, showing that the latter were sufficiently under 

 control to be collected and conveyed from one part of the country 

 to the other ; in short, that they existed at that time as a domesti- 

 cated breed. 



The gigantic Urus is then, in all probability, extinct. It 

 " appears to have been domesticated amongst the Swiss lake- 

 dwellers, abounding then and down to historic times in the forests 

 of Europe. Caesar describes it as existing in his time in the 

 Hercynian forest, in size almost as large as an elephant, but in 

 form and colour like a bull. Its immense size may be gathered 

 from the fact that a skull in the British Museum, found near 

 Athole, in Perthshire, measures one yard in length, whilst the span 

 of the horn-cores is three feet six inches," 



Two other species of cattle. Bos lo7igifrons and Bos frotitosus^ 

 are now extinct, but were probably the progenitors of many races 

 of domestic cattle in Europe. 



The Aurochs, or Lithuanian bison, can hardly be considered 

 as a fossil form, as it is preserved with great care in the forests, 

 belonging to the Emperor of Russia, in Lithuania. But the 

 remains of this large ox are found abundantly in various pre- 

 historic deposits, and we cannot doubt that the Aurochs owes its 

 present existence, as a race, to the care of man. Bos primigeiiius 



