CHILLINGHAM BREED 35 



any of the remaining white breeds, and we have found no 

 reference to that unmistakable condition in the history of any 

 one of them. 



The idea that the Romans introduced the progenitors of the 

 white cattle is not new, for Dr Robert Knox, the Anatomist, 

 speculates vaguely on the subject in the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2nd April 1838, and doubts their 

 aboriginal character, " since they are not found in Ireland." 



On the other side, Dr J. A. Smith, " the learned Vice- 

 President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," thinks 

 " the urus may perhaps be considered to have still existed from 

 the sixth to the ninth century." If so, why not till a later 

 period, in the form of the wild white cattle of the country ? 



There is no sound foundation for the belief in the 

 untamable nature of the wild cattle. Sir Charles Lyell, in 

 his Antiquity of Man, says : 



" Professor Riitimeyer of Basle has shown that among the 

 remains of wild animals dredged up from the ancient Swiss 

 dwellings, there are those of the wild bull." It is also 

 " beyond question that, towards the close of the Stone and 

 beginning of the Bronze period, the lake dwellers had 

 succeeded in taming that formidable brute the Bos primi- 

 genius. ... In a tame state its bones were somewhat less 

 massive and heavy and its horns somewhat smaller than in 

 wild individuals." 



Several specimens of at least three of the existing breeds, 

 being handled quite young, have been successfully tamed 

 and domesticated. 



Tame domesticated white cattle, strongly resembling the 

 wild breed, existed from very early times in a few localities 

 in England, but mostly south of the Trent. 



The wild cattle in Chillingham Park, 1 near Belford, 

 in the wildest and most beautiful part of Northumberland, 

 the property of the Earl of Tankerville, are said to be the 



1 Brought into public notice, first by Bewick's celebrated engraving, 

 and subsequently by Landseer's famous picture of "The Death of 

 the Bull." A description of the hunt, which ended in the death of 

 the subject of the picture, together with many valuable details of the 

 Chillingham herds, may be found in an interesting brochure by the Earl 

 of Tankerville, The Chillingham Wild Cattle : Reminiscences of Life in 

 the Highlands, 1891, printed at the Surrey Comet office. 



