186 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
BRITISH PARK-CATTLE, AND 
THE AUROCHS 
THE so-called ‘ WILD CATTLE” found in 
the parks of Chillingham and Chartley, as 
well as in Lord Leigh’s park at Lyme, and 
in that of the Duke of Hamilton at Cadzow 
Castle, Scotland, are probably not the 
descendants of an indigenous wild race. It 
is not without reluctance that the belief in 
their wild descent has been abandoned. But 
the evidence seems fairly conclusive as to 
the antiquity of these white cattle, regarded 
as a primitive breed, and of the unlikelihood 
of their being survivors of a truly wild stock. 
They are almost identical in many points 
with the best breeds of modern cattle, and 
i oS. probably represent the finest type possessed 
" Phota by W’, P, Dande by the ancient inhabitants of these islands. 
ENGLISH PARK BULL But they are far smaller than the original 
WILD Ox, or AUROCHS, the ancestor of our 
domestic breeds. The skulls of these large 
wild oxen, which still survived in the Black Forest in Cesar’s time, have been dug up in 
many parts of England, especially in the Thames Valley, and may be seen at the Natural 
History Museum. The remains of the extinct wild ox, the Bos wrus of the Romans, show 
that, if not so large as an elephant, as Casar heard, its size was gigantic, reckoned by any 
modern cattle standard whatever. It probably stood 6 feet high at the shoulder, and there 
is every reason to believe that it was the progenitor of the modern race of domestic cattle 
in Europe. It seems certain that the Chartley Park herd did once run wild in Needwood 
Forest; but so do the Italian buffaloes in the Maremma, and the Spanish bulls on the plains 
of Andalusia. Those at Chartley have been kept in the park, which is very wild and remote, so 
long that they have gradually lost 
many of the attributes of domestica- 
tion. This is even more marked in 
the case of Lord Tankervill’s white 
cattle at Chillingham. An observant 
visitor to Chillingham lately noted 
that the bulls fight for the possession 
of the cows, and that one is occasion- 
ally killed in these combats. The 
cows still “stampede” with their 
calves when alarmed, and hide them ‘ 
for a week or ten days after they are 
born. The horns of the Chillingham 
cattle turn up; those of the bulls of 
the Chartley herd are straight or 
slightly inclined downwards. Cross- 
breds between the Chartley cattle and 
some other herds of reputed ancient 
descent may generally be seen at the Photo by H’, P. Danae 
London Zoological Gardens. They CALF OF ENGLISH PARK-CATTLE 
remain remarkably true to type. Though the stock is very old and inbred, the white park-cattle are still fairly prolific 
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The similarity in shape to the best-bred modern shorthorns is obvious 
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