TEE BURTON CONSTABLE SERB. 253 



ascertain ; but they had certainly a better pasture. My 

 impression is that the Lyme Park cattle, in size and in 

 some other respects, resembled the ancient Bos urus more 

 nearly than any other recently existing park breed ; and 

 the horns preserved at Lyme, and especially those on 

 the skeleton head of the cow, appeared to me to grow 

 very similarly in form to the horns of that animal. 



The herd of white cattle at Burton Constable, in 

 the East Riding of Yorkshire, deserves our attention 

 next. It is mentioned by Bewick, in 1790, as having 

 been then a few years extinct. The fine old house and 

 park of Burton Constable are situated in the parish of 

 Sproatley, in the richest and flattest part of Holderness, 

 just where it is narrowing towards Spurn Head, and 

 about fourteen miles across from Kingston-upon-Hull to 

 the east coast. If a straight line is drawn from that 

 town to the coast, Burton Constable lies nearly equi- 

 distant between them. It formerly belonged to the 

 ancient family of Constable, and is now the property 

 of Sir F. A. Talbot Clifford-Constable, whose father, 

 remotely connected with that family by marriage, 

 succeeded to their estates and took their name. 



In the splendid old Manor House there is one of the 

 finest libraries in Yorkshire, and therein (my information 

 being derived from a person who was allowed to examine 

 it in the time of the late baronet) a collection of MSS., 

 written about the middle of the last century by " the 

 learned William Constable," upon various subjects : 

 horses, cattle, agriculture, and county history ; and 

 which in all probability contain some valuable references 

 to the herd of wild cattle which then inhabited the 

 park. I write this for the benefit of those who may 



