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 latebre, 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,” fawi 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 tawri 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 tawri 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 of 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, 
T halde hyr-wyld, maik thou hyr tame.” 
I think this shows that the “wyld” forest cattle were 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 the tame 
Yyoked be, to teche him howe to doo.” 
Now, his “wilde oxe” was neither white nor ferocious, for the 
author describes him as follows :— 
“< Whoos frounte is crispe and glaade, large eres are, 
Thaire lippes and thair een blacke as geet,$ 
With hornes stronge and streght is goode to gete. 
