WILD OX AND ITS EXTERMINATION 41 
and Mayence skulls of the aurochs with horns of 
immense size. We are told, again, that in the second 
half of the sixteenth century Bishop Johann von 
Manderscheid discovered in his episcopal treasury 
a huge horn mounted as a goblet, which from its 
great size could only have belonged to an aurochs. 
This horn was deposited by the bishop in the castle 
of Hohenbarr, near Zabern, as the emblem of a 
body known as the " Bruderschaft des Homes " 
(Confraternity of the Horn), whose object was to 
bring together the hardest drinkers in the district. 
What became of this trophy is unknown ; and the 
same is the case with other aurochs-horns mounted 
as drinking-cups and preserved in many inns, 
churches, and castles, especially in South Germany 
and Alsace-Lorraine, till a comparatively recent date, 
one of which measured 6J feet in length, while another 
held 3| quarts. 
There are likewise certain references to the aurochs 
and the bison, as animals then living in Europe, 
between the years 1240 and 1364; but much more 
important information is afforded with regard to 
the existence of the former species in eastern 
Prussia and Lithuania (the modern Grodno) at the 
close of the fourteenth century. There occur, for 
instance, in a kind of an account-book (" Das 
Marienburger Tresslerbuch der Jahre, 1 399-1409") 
various entries under the headings of Euwir, Uwer, 
Weszent, Wesent, and Wesant, of which the last 
three refer to the bison, and the other two to the 
aurochs, the bison being more frequently mentioned 
than the aurochs. Thus in an entry dated 2nd 
February 1404 it is stated that one mark and a 
half was given to a Prussian who brought an aurochs : 
