240 WILD WHITE CATTLE. 
them shot.* There is no clue to their origin, and 
this is the only instance yet known of a wild herd in 
the west of England. 
*LyYME Park, CHESHIRE, was originally part of the 
Forest of Macclesfield, and was granted by Richard. 
II. toward the close of the fourteenth century to Sir 
Piers Legh, who was standard-bearer to the Black 
Prince at the Battle of.Cresci. It has ever since 
remained in the family of Legh, and the breed of 
cattle still preserved there is thought to be at least 
as ancient as the park itself. Hansall, in his “ His- 
tory of Cheshire” (1817), says : 
“Tn Lyme Park, which contains about one thousand 
Cheshire acres, is a herd of upwards of twenty wild 
cattle, similar to those in Lord Tankerville’s park at 
Chillingham—chiefly white with red ears. They 
have been in the park from time immemorial, and 
tradition says they are indigenous. In the summer 
season they assemble in the high lands, and in the 
winter they shelter in the park woods. They were 
formerly fed with holly branches, with which trees the 
park abounded ; but these being destroyed, hay is 
now substituted. Two of the cows are shot annually 
for beef.” 
Thirty years ago this herd, it is said, numbered as 
many as thirty-four head. Then it gradually 
dwindled until in August, 1875, when Mr. Storer 
visited Lyme, there were only four animals surviving 
—a three-year-old bull, a cow, a three-year-old heifer 
in calf, and a young calf. In two years’ time there 
* Shirley, “ English Deer Parks,” p. 99. 
