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BOS PRIMIGENIUS AND THE CHILLINGHAM 

 WILD CATTLE. 



As regards Bos primigenius— a. writer in the "^Saturday Review" of 

 July 28th, (article on Belford and Chillingham) — appears to think 

 that this species did not exist in Britain before the Saxon Invasion, 

 though the mightiest of all the beasts of chase that roamed in the 

 forests of Germany. Therefore, as the Chillingham Wild Cattle 

 are admitted to show the nearest approach among existing breeds 

 to the characteristics of Bos priinigenius, he asks whether we are 

 to believe that the Chillingham Cattle have preserved their freedom 

 from prehistoric times, or are they relapsed descendants of domes- 

 ticated cattle brought over "in the keels of Hengest or of Ida;" 

 and inclines to the last-named view as the "less romantic" of the 

 two. But the Silloth humerus alone is sufficient to show the 

 existence of Bos primigcnws in Britain long before the Fifth 

 Century. And if by "romantic" is meant wild and fanciful, the 

 notion that Hengest and Ida sailed on piratical or colonizing 

 expeditions with domesticated examples of Bos primigenius on 

 board, seems eminently deserving of that epithet ; while the 

 alternative view offers no difficulties whatever. 



T. V. H. 



NOTE ON SHAWK BECK. 



■ On referring lately to Hutchinson's " History of Cumberland," in 

 order to ascertain the various spelUngs of the name of the above 

 stream, I found a detailed account of the rocks quarried along its 

 course above East Curthwaite. It was the more interesting to me, 

 because, on the previous day, I had been inspecting Farey's well- 

 known section across the Wealden District of S.E. England (1806), 

 and had been much struck by the mixture of light with utter 

 darkness displayed in his notions of geological structure ; and the 

 writer in Hutchinson must have written fifteen to twenty years 



