24 WILD WRITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



country, with, a picture of white cattle pursued by a 

 lion, taken from a picture on the walls of Pompeii. Both 

 are authentic; for the first is copied from Messrs. Moll and 

 Grayot's celebrated work on European cattle; the other, 

 sent to me from Naples by a friend, was taken from the 

 original by a celebrated Neapolitan photographer. Mol- 

 davia, which was formerly part of ancient Scythia, has 

 preserved to a great extent unaltered the character of 

 its old domestic race of the Urus type, and we can 

 scarcely fail to recognise the similarity of these to 

 those shown in the Pompeian picture of many hundred 

 years before, and the striking resemblance of both to the 

 pictures of our wild cattle yet retained in the Park at 

 Chillingham. 



Yet one word more on the Pompeian picture. It 

 may represent the imported domestic cattle which 

 the Romans received from Epirus and Thrace, and from 

 the countries contiguous to the present Moldavia ; but 

 it is quite possible, that this ancient picture por- 

 trays the pursuit of the wild Urus himself by the 

 lion. In either case, but especially in the latter, it 

 would seem to furnish a strong clue towards the deter- 

 mination of the question, what was the colour of the 

 ancient Bos urus? My own opinion is that he was 

 either white, or of a pale colour approaching to white. 

 In this respect I unfortunately differ from a great 

 authority, Professor Nilsson, who in his description 

 of this animal says, "According to all accounts the 

 colour of this ox was black." I wish I knew what the 

 accounts here alluded to are. The Professor, however, 

 is said to have considered as of some authority an 

 engraving, supposed to be of the Bos urus, given in 

 volume iv., page 411, of Griffith's admirable "Animal 



