ITS FINAL EXTINCTION. 273 



the above informant must certainly have known it. 

 This circumstance tends much to enhance our opinion 

 of the value of the Wollaton "old park breed." 



This breed was clearly, to a certain extent, domesti- 

 cated in its later years, but its original wild nature still 

 remained, and prevented its being altogether subjugated 

 by man. I conceive it to have been in that transition 

 state in which Sir John Orde's herd at Kilmory now is, 

 or in which the descendants of the wild Middleton and 

 Whalley Abbey herds were at Grisburne Park — a partial 

 domestication, not so complete as others of the same 

 variety have since attained in Norfolk. The end of this 

 herd was, according to the accounts of those who knew 

 the cattle best, that " they began to deteriorate and fall 

 off in size " — "that they would breed no longer" — and 

 that, finally, an unfortunate accident and lamentable neg- 

 ligence combined, helped to consummate more quickly 

 the ruin which in-breeding had wrought. 



The pasturage of the park, which is of considerable 

 extent, is fairly good, but not particularly rich. Some 

 few remarks must be made with respect to the probable 

 origin of the herd, though nothing positive can be ascer- 

 tained. It seems reasonable to suppose that from the 

 grand old Forest of Sherwood this wild breed came : either 

 immediately and directly, or derived at an early period 

 from some ancient park, or later from some suppressed 

 monastery. If the second of these suppositions is 

 the true one, these cattle may have come from the 

 royal park of Beskwood, only some three miles distant, 

 and in the heart of Sherwood Forest.* " The King's 



* The Royal Huntings in the " King's Hag of Beskwood " have long 

 since ceased, as Dr. Thoroton tells us, in his " History of Nottingham- 

 shire," written in 1677. He says: — "Before the troubles it was well 



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