THE HERB OF GREAT ANTIQUITY. 271 



being milked, but some of them were too wild for this. 

 He well remembers some men coming to his father's 

 public-house when he was something over twenty, and 

 their saying — ' Well ! the old park breed is done away 

 with.' " 



Mr. Burton strongly insists that they were polled, 

 and called " the old park breed ; " and Mr. Kirkland, 

 whose father was born at Wollaton in 1782, tells me 

 that he has often heard him mention both the above 

 circumstances. These cattle became extinct in the time 

 of Henry, sixth Lord Middleton (who succeeded 4th of 

 June, 1800, and died 19th of June, 1835). He was a 

 very eccentric nobleman : once shot a woodcock off a 

 bull's back for a wager, and once drove a team of oxen 

 in his carriage ; and the story got about that the animals 

 so employed were some of the wild cattle. Mr. Barton 

 shows that this was not the case. Some Devons were 

 also kept as domestic cattle, and the bull which his lord- 

 ship rode was a Devon, " and it was put up at the 

 ' King's Head.' " Mr. Burton adds, that the old park 

 cattle " were larger and finer than the Devons." 



My other information is derived from the late Mr. 

 Willoughby, Rector of Wollaton, and the present Lord 

 Middleton's brother. He first applied to Mr. C. Chouler, 

 a gentleman well known, and for many years steward of 

 the Lords Middleton. All the information he could 

 give was, that when he went to Wollaton in the fifth 

 lord's time, in 1792 (which must have been as a boy), 

 " they were in the park," and that " the sixth lord also 

 had them several years ; but as they began to deteriorate 

 and fall off in size, his lordship adopted the Devon 

 breed." Mr. Henry Moody, whom Mr. Willoughby 

 got to make further inquiries, " derived some further 



