WILD OX AND ITS EXTERMLNTATION 51 
invisible in the position from which the picture 
was painted), the colour agrees precisely with Her- 
berstein's description mentioned later on, and thereby 
renders it indisputable that adult Polish wild bulls 
were black. 
Colonel Hamilton Smith adds that the Augsburg 
picture agrees with a sculpture on the " stone of 
Clunia," which has a Celto-Iberian inscription, and 
represents a hunter facing a wild bull. 
In addition to that of Herberstein, contemporary 
accounts of Polish aurochs have come down to us in 
the writings of Conrad Gesner ^ derived from his friends 
Baron Bonarus and Dr. Schneeberger, the latter of 
whom was a physician resident in Cracow during part 
of the sixteenth century. 
From these accounts it appears that the breeding 
season of the aurochs occurred in September, and that 
the calves were born in the following May. Bull 
calves were at first blackish brown, but afterwards 
became black, with a light streak along the spine. It 
is also stated by Baron Bonarus that the bulls 
frequently paired with domesticated cows, the latter 
being very similar in colour to their wild relatives ; 
while, on the other hand, it is expressly mentioned 
that no such intercourse took place between the wild 
bison and domesticated cattle. 
The difference in the colour of the young and the 
adults is paralleled in the case of the Javan bantin 
{Bos sondaicus), where only the adult bulls are 
black. 
The accounts of the aurochs do not, however, end 
with those of Herberstein, Bonarus, and Schneeberger, 
for in 1596 Cardinal Gaetano was dispatched by 
^ Historia Anitnaliwn^ ed. 1606, pp. 141, 142. 
