wvi PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



by thousands. * * * * From Abingdon to Gloucester, a distance of forty or fifty 

 miles, there was not a single enclosure, and scarcely one enclosure between Biggleswade 

 and Lincoln." At a still earlier period the enclosures must have been very few 

 indeed. Under conditions of life of this kind the domestic animals must neces- 

 sarily have been wilder than they are now, since they were sent out into the unenclosed 

 lands to get their living, being, to a certain extent, independent of the care of man. 

 In Becket's days, in the forest extending on the north of London from the meadows 

 and pastures of the wealthy citizens there were to be found woodland bulls as well as 

 wild boars, stags, and roes. 1 The wildness, therefore, of the Chillingham ox cannot be 

 taken to be a satisfactory proof that it inhabited Britain originally in a feral state, any 

 more than the same quality in the South American cattle or the horse indicates that 

 they, too, were descended from wild American stocks. There is, however, proof of 

 another kind which renders it impossible to believe that the Chillingham ox was ever 

 aboriginally wild in our country. The creamy white colour of so large an animal would 

 render concealment in underwood impossible, and cause it to fall a prey to its enemies, 

 and its large size would render it extremely valuable to the hunter. Such a detriment to 

 the well-being of a wild animal in so small an island could only have been avoided under 

 the care and tutelage of man. Had it ever been wild in Britain it would have been exter- 

 minated long before the Historic Period. 



The historical evidence, therefore, is decisive that a large breed of cattle was highly 

 prized in Wales in the tenth or eleventh centuries, which very closely resembled the ox 

 of Chillingham, and the minute specification of its characters implies the existence, at the 

 same time, of some other breed. It is only reasonable to suppose, from the fact that all the 

 truly English breeds of cattle now living in England are of the same stock, that in those early 

 times the animal was that which was more usually kept by the English (Anglo-Saxon) in- 

 habitants in Britain. Beyond this point I am unable to trace the larger breed in Britain ; 

 but its absence from the very many refuse-heaps and accumulations of bones which I have 

 examined renders it almost certain that it was unknown during the Roman occupation. 

 Indeed, none of the larger oxen, whether wild or domestic, have left any trace of their exist- 

 ence in our country at that time. Had they lived here at the time they would certainly 

 have formed part of the food of the Roman provincials, and would have been discovered 

 in their refuse-heaps. 



We have, therefore, to account for the introduction of this larger breed into Britain 

 about the time of the great English invasion. Before that time it was unknown ; after 

 that time it was very widely spread. If we appeal to history there are several circum- 

 stances which indicate that it was imported by the conquerors of Roman Britain from 

 their ancient home in the district between the Rhine and the Elbe. In the Sagas and 

 elsewhere there is ample proof that the inhabitants of Scandinavia possessed herds of 



1 " Tauri Sylvestres," ' Vita Sancti Thomae, auctore Wilhelrao Filio Shepbani,' vol. i, 8vo edit. A. Giles 

 Oxonise, p. 173. 



