138 BEPOET— 1887. 



enclosure with seven cows (in Marcli the ChilHngham bull was by him- 

 self, and the ten calves then in existence in a fourth enclosure). 



When the grass is scanty, hay and turnips are given, and the cows in 

 addition get a little cotton-seed cake. 



The keeper (Scott), who has known them for upwards of twenty 

 years, says they are much less wild and dangerous now than formerly, in 

 consequence of being visited by so many people of late years. 



Chillingham. — In October last the herd numbered 60 animals ; this 

 has been the average number during the last twenty-three years (Lord 

 Tankerville wishes to raise the number to 70, which is sufficient for the 

 extent of the park). During the above period 113 male calves and 105 

 females have been dropped, averaging over nine a year. The deaths have 

 averaged about ten annually. The causes of death, besides the shooting of 

 oxen and an occasional aged or sickly bull or cow, include old age, drown- 

 ing, injuries received in fighting, rupture, cancer, fall, and other injuries; 

 poverty and want of food ; and, in calves, the failure of the dams' milk. 



The cattle live on good terms with the red deer, but they will not 

 tolerate fallow deer or sheep in the park, possibly because they eat the 

 pasture too close, or more probably from the fact of the red deer being 

 like themselves primisval denizens of the forest. 



They will never touch turnips. During the last few winters ensilage 

 has been given them along with the hay. For a long time none of them 

 would touch the ensilage. They sniffed at it and turned away. Even 

 when all the hay had been eaten the ensilage remained untouched. At 

 length a young bull was seen to try the ensilage ; he went back to the 

 herd, and they returned to the ensilage with him. Since then the ensilage 

 is always finished before the hay is attacked. It is not thought prudent 

 to give very much ensilage, as it appears to stimulate the milk in the cows 

 too much for a time, and it afterwards fails. 



One difficulty in increasing the herd is, that the cows continue to 

 suckle their calf even after a second calf is born, and the latter is 

 consequently left to starve. The calves dropped in winter suffer from 

 want of milk. 



The herd is subject to sudden panics, owing to strangers frightening 

 them purposely to see them run, and several calves have been trodden to 

 death in these stampedes. 



Drowning in the marshes has been a frequent cause of death in wet 

 winters and during thaws. 



It is denied that any calves are dropped coloured otherwise than the 

 correct white, with black extending very slightly beyond the naked part 

 of the nose, and red ears, though in Bewick's time (towards the end of 

 last century) there were some with black ears, and from the steward's 

 book in 1692 there were not only several animals with black ears, but 

 some were apparently entirely black and one brown. ^ 



It is believed that Culley's celebrated shorthorns at the beginning of 

 this century were bred by a cross secretly obtained with a Chillingham 

 wild bull.2 



' Storer, Wild White Cattle, p. 154 ; and Halting, Extinct British Animals, p. 

 234. Bewick, Quadrupeds, 8th ed. 1824, in a foot-note, p. 39 : ' About twenty years 

 since there were a few at Chillingham with black EAUS, but the present park- 

 keeper destroyed them, since which period there has not been one with black ears.' 



- Bewick, op. cit. p. 41 (foot-note) : ' Tame cows, in season, are frequently turned 

 out amongst the wild cattle at Chillingham,' &c. 



