20b 



The Living Animals of the World 



Photo by JJ". P. UciMlol [Regent's Park. 



ENGLISH PARK BULL. 

 The similarity in shape to the best-bred modern shorthorns is obvious. 



BRITISH PARK-CATTLE, AND 

 THE AUROCHS. 



THE so-called "WiLD CATTLE" found in 

 the parks of Chillingham and Chartley, as 

 well as in Lord Leigh's park at Lyme, and 

 in that of the Duke of Hamilton at Cadzow 

 Castle, Scotland, are probably not the 

 descendants of an indigenous wild race. It 

 is not without reluctance that the belief in 

 their wild descent has been abandoned. .But 

 the evidence seems fairly conclusive as to 

 the antiquity of these white cattle, regarded 

 as a primitive breed, and of the unlikelihood 

 of their being survivors of a truly wild stock. 

 They are almost identical in many points 

 with the best breeds of modern cattle, and 

 probably represent the finest type possessed 

 by the ancient inhabitants of these islands. 

 But they are far smaller than the original 

 WILD Ox, or AUROCHS, the ancestor of our 

 domestic breeds. The skulls of these large 



wild oxen, which still survived in the Black Forest in Caesar's time, have been dug up in 



many parts of England, especially in the Thames Valley, and may be seen at the Natural 



History Museum. The remains of the extinct wild ox, the Bos urus of the Romans, show 



that, if not so large as an elephant, as Caesar heard, its size was gigantic, reckoned by any 



modern cattle standard whatever. It probably stood 6 feet high at the shoulder, and there 



is every reason to believe that it was the progenitor of the modern race of domestic cattle 



in Europe. It seems certain that the Chartley Park herd did once run wild in Needwood 



Forest ; but so do the Italian buffaloes in the Maremma, and the Spanish bulls on the plains 



of Andalusia. Those at Chartley have been kept in the park, which is very wild and remote, so 



long that they have gradually lost 



many of the attributes of domestica- 



tion. This is even more marked in 



the case of Lord Tankerville's white 



cattle at Chillingham. An observant 



visitor to Chillingham lately noted 



that the bulls fight for the possession 



of the cows, and that one is occasion- 



ally killed in these combats. The 



cows still " stampede " with their. 



calves when alarmed, and hide them 



for a week or ten days after they are 



born. The horns of the Chillingham 



cattle turn up; those of the bulls of 



the Chartley herd are straight or 



slightly inclined downwards. Cross- 



breds between the Chartley cattle and 



some other herds of reputed ancient 



descent may generally be seen at the 



Zoological Gardens. They remain 



remarkably true tO type. 



Photo i y w. p. 



[Regent's 



CALF OP ENGLISH PARK-CATTLE. 



Though the stock is very old and inbred, the white park-cattle are still fairly prolific. 



