90 FAUNA OF SHROPSHIRE. 



the engineers are now at work upon the new Railway 

 Bridge. It is believed that the original stock had 

 white hair, and that the celebrated Chillingham Wild 

 Cattle, and similar herds in other places, are lineal 

 descendants of this old European Ox, or Aurochs, and 

 that our numerous domestic races are sprung from the 

 same stock, but improved by a long and judicious 

 course of human selection. 



RED DEER or Stag (male) and Hind (female). As in 

 Cervus elaphus. the case of the Ox, we have to go back 



a long distance of time to find evidence 

 of the existence of Wild Deer in Shropshire, and we find 

 it at the same place the old Roman city of Uriconium. 

 Doubtless when the Romans had conquered the old in- 

 habitants, and had had leisure to settle down and build 

 the substantial dwelling places, baths, forums, and shops 

 of which we here see the remains, they turned their 

 attention to hunting. The fashionable "sport" of those 

 days would be, not Fox-hunting, but the chase of the 

 noble Stag, and the active and dangerous Wild Boar. 

 The spoils of the chase would be borne triumphantly 

 home, and form the centre of attraction at the festal 

 board. That the Stags of Shropshire were in those 

 days truly a noble race, we have ample evidence in the 

 antlers brought from Uriconium and now to be seen in 

 the Shrewsbury Museum : these are all more or less 

 broken, but the large size of the fragments shows that 

 they were finer specimens than are to be met with at 

 the present day in the Highlands of Scotland. The 

 Romans used the horns for making knife-handles, and 

 for other purposes. Remains of the Red -deer were 

 also found in excavating the site of the Post Office, at 



