ORDER ARTIODACTYLA : EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 513 



had taken similar action. It survived longest in the Jaktorowka 

 Forest in Masovia, western Poland. An account and figure of the 

 Aurochs in this area are given by Herberstein (1557). In 1596 the 

 species was still maintained in the Jaktorowka Forest and also in 

 a royal preserve near Warsaw. The Jaktorowka herd numbered 

 30 individuals in 1564, 24 in 1599, and 4 in 1602. By 1620 the sole 

 survivor was a cow, and it died in 1627. This was apparently the 

 last wild Aurochs. 



"Towards the end of the 14th century King Wladislaus Jagiello 

 [of Poland] established laws, which in high degree restricted the 

 persecution of the aurochs .... In the 16th century the Polish 

 King Sigismund III Vasa, seeing the imminent danger of a quick 

 and total extermination of the aurochs, proclaimed orders with the 

 object of protecting the feeding grounds of these animals, the 

 number of which at this time did not amount to more than some 

 ten pieces. Unluckily the enactment of those orders came too late 

 and in consequence the aurochs disappeared in the lands belonging 

 to the Republic as soon as the next century (XVII, 1627)." (Bene- 

 dyct Fulinski, MS., 1933.) 



The species had little to fear from natural enemies. According 

 to Swiecicki (1634), a solitary bull was a match for several wolves. 



During Biblical times the range of the Aurochs extended to 

 Syria; it is referred to in the Bible as the reem. "On the Assyrian 

 monuments its chase is represented as the greatest feat of hunting 

 in the time of the earliest dynasties of Nineveh; but does not 

 appear in those of the later period of the Assyrian monarchy at 

 Kuyonjik. ... I obtained its teeth in bone-breccia in Lebanon, 

 proving its co-existence there with man." (Tristram, 1884, p. 8.) 



Domestication. In Keller's opinion (1902, p. 141), the Aurochs 

 was first tamed and domesticated in southeastern Europe by the 

 oldest Grecian peoples in pre-Homeric times perhaps about 2000 

 B. C. Thence the culture spread to the Baltic lowlands, Switzer- 

 land, England, and southern Sweden. Keller lists (p. 217) the 

 following domestic breeds as derivatives from the Aurochs: Eng- 

 lish park cattle, North German lowland cattle, Dutch cattle, steppe 

 cattle, Simmenthal and Freiburg spotted cattle. 



"The black Spanish fighting bulls also claim descent from the 

 aurochs. They have a light-colored line along the spine, which was 

 characteristic of the aurochs." (Lydekker, 1910, vol. 2, p. 927.) 



