338 Anniversary Address. 



trees are scattered over the park, yet within it are broad and 

 rich pastures, tenanted by deer and by the celebrated Wild 

 Cattle — ''mightiest of all the beasts of chase." Of these 

 cattle there is now a herd of more than sixty. A good view was 

 obtained of them ; their colour is white, excepting that the 

 eyes, eyelashes, and tips of the horns are black ; the muzzle 

 is brown, and the inside of the ears red or brown j their shape 

 is considered fine, the legs being short and the back straight. 

 They are supposed to be the pure descendants of the aborig- 

 inal wild cattle of the country ; the problem of their origin 

 however is as yet unsolved ; it may turn out that they are 

 merely a variety of our ordinary cattle, preserved by inbreed- 

 ing and by destroying such calves as are born difiering from 

 the common type. Their resemblance to the feral cattle of 

 one part of the Falkland Islands, has given a new interest to 

 the question -, and as Earl Tankerville, in accordance with 

 suggestions made to him, is causing a record to be kept of the 

 births, sexes, deaths and causes of death of these animals, and 

 has also "supplied a skull and other bones to Professor Riits- 

 negen, who is studying, with great care, the skulls of recent 

 and extinct oxen, we may, ere long, obtain a more exact 

 knowledge of the origin and history of the Chillingham wild 

 cattle. 



On leaving the Park, a passing look was given at Chil- 

 lingham church — an old solemn structure, still retaining in its 

 doorway the original Norman piers, capitals, and arch ; and 

 at the elaborate and beautiful tomb, within the Grey porch, 

 erected to the memory of Sir Ralph Grey of Wark, who died 

 in 1443. Chillingham Castle was next visited, which as well 

 as the Park was, through the courtesy of Earl Tankerville, 

 opened to the inspection of the club. Its situation, embosomed 

 among woods, is delightful, but externally it has neither the 

 massiveness of the old Gothic castle nor the elegance of a 

 modern mansion. Most of its architecture belongs to the 

 Elizabethan period, but some portions of the old towers, 

 erected in the 13th century are preserved ; there is still a 

 narroAv prison, to which light and air are admitted only by a 



