WILD OX AND ITS EXTERMINATION 43 
more remote districts, while even there the half-wild 
domesticated cattle would consume much of the grass 
which formed their food. Hunting, too, doubtless 
did its share in the extermination of the aurochs, and 
in the driving back of the range of the bison to 
Lithuania and the Caucasus. 
As to the date when the aurochs disappeared from 
eastern Prussia and Lithuania there appears to be 
no clue ; but it is practically certain that sometime 
after 1409, or thereabouts, the wild ox survived only 
in the fastnesses of Poland, at any rate so far as 
Europe is concerned.^ Here, as previously mentioned, 
it was known by the name of tur or thuj'^ while the 
bison was, and still is, termed the 2ubr or suber. One 
of the earliest records of the existence of the aurochs 
in Poland is a proclamation by Duke Boleslaus of 
Masovia, dated 1298, in which the hunting of the tur 
is prohibited for the future. In a second ancient 
document, dated 1359, Duke Ziemovit of Masovia 
grants permission to the Duchess of Wyszogrod to 
hunt all animals on his estates with the exception 
of tur. 
In both the above instances Masovia, or that 
portion of Poland situated in the west of the old 
kingdom, near the present German frontier, is given 
as the home of the wild ox. Here it survived longest, 
probably in much the same manner as the bison does 
in the Lithuanian forest of Bielowitza (pronounced 
Bielowish), namely, under the special protection of 
the Polish nobles. At that time the portion of 
Masovia lying about 33A miles (55 kilometres) to the 
west-south-west of Warsaw, between the parishes of 
^ No importance can apparently be attached to certain alleged 
evidence of the aurochs being hunted in Bavaria in 1596. 
