PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE HERD. 255 



black-eared were specially selected — " they studiously 

 endeavoured to preserve " the latter. It is therefore 

 quite certain that the red ear was sometimes produced 

 in this herd. 



As the Burton Constable herd was, unlike most 

 others, far removed from the great mountain range and 

 its immense forests, it would seem that these cattle were 

 probably brought here from some other place. I will 

 point out some of the sources from which they may 

 have been derived. The Bishops of Durham had a large 

 park and palace in Howdenshire, then subject to his 

 jurisdiction ; and Hutchinson, in his " History of 

 Durham," mentions several of the Constable family, 

 who were Seneschals for the Bishop of Durham's estates 

 in Howdenshire. Very near to Burton Constable was 

 the rich and well-managed Cistercian Abbey of Meaux, 

 or " de Melsa," which had frequent dealings with the 

 Constables ; and in the same neighbourhood was the 

 Cistercian nunnery of Swine, granted, in the third and 

 fourth year of Philip and Mary, by the queen to Sir 

 John Constable. From one or other of the parks 

 belonging to these great ecclesiastical houses these wild 

 cattle may have been obtained. I think, however, it is 

 much more probable that they were brought from the 

 banks of the Tees — the native home, as we have seen, 

 of the wild bull ; for there, five miles south-east of 

 Barnard Castle, the Constables have long possessed 

 Wy cliff e Hall, intermediate between it and Darlington. 



" The park of Burton Constable," says Shirley, "is 

 undoubtedly very ancient. At present it contains 29C 

 acres." 



