370 BOVID^. 



of our parks, and their tendency to vary in that respect, 

 along with their small size as compared with the Urus, are 

 all points in favour of the belief that they are the repre- 

 sentatives of a breed of Cattle escaped from captivity, 

 which in the course of generations of a wild forest life 

 reverted to a considerable extent to the characters of their 

 distant ancestors. 



This breed of White Cattle has been recorded as 

 having been kept at the following parks : — Kincardine 

 (Kincardineshire), Stirling (Stirlingshire), Cumbernauld 

 (Dumbartonshire), Cadzovv (Lanarkshire), Drumlanrig 

 (Dumfriesshire), Chillingham (Northumberland), Bishop 

 Auckland (Durham), Burton Constable and Gisburn 

 (Yorkshire), Lyme (Cheshire), Chartley (Staffordshire), 

 and Wollerton (Nottingham). They now exist only at 

 Cadzow, Chillingham, Lyme Park, and Chartley. 



Of these the Chillingham herd appears to be the purest 

 bred. The best account of it which we have met with is 

 given in the second volume of the " Annals of Natural 

 History," by Mr. J. Hindmarsh, who derived much of 

 his information from the Earl of Tankerville himself. 

 Nothing can now be learned of the ancient history of the 

 cattle, but the park is known to have existed early in the 

 thirteenth century. The Chillingham Cattle " have pre- 

 eminently all the characteristics of wild animals, with 

 some peculiarities which are sometimes very curious and 

 amusing. They hide their young, feed in the night, 

 basking or sleeping during the day ; they are fierce when 

 pressed, but generally speaking very timorous, moving off 

 on the appearance of any one, even at a great distance.'^ 

 The Bulls fight fiercely for the command of the herd, and 

 when one becomes old or feeble it is gored to death by 

 the rest of the herd. The number of these Cattle in 1838 

 amounted to about eighty head ; they have the muzzle 



