5 2 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
Pope Clement VII on a mission to Poland, accom- 
panied by his private secretary, Paul Mucante, who 
left a diary, in which it is stated that the King of 
Poland presented the cardinal with the carcase of an 
aurochs from a royal preserve. This aurochs was 
grey, and its flesh, when eaten, was pronounced 
to be very like ordinary beef, but drier and tougher. 
Subsequently the cardinal paid a visit to the preserve, 
which was a huge enclosed forest about two miles 
from Warsaw, where various wild animals were 
kept; but although bison were seen, no aurochs 
made its appearance. In the diary distinction is 
drawn between aurochs, domesticated cattle, and 
bison. 
This account is of importance, as indicating that 
the Polish sovereign possessed a private preserve, 
apart from the Jaktorowka Forest,^ where both 
aurochs and bison were kept. Mucante further 
states that aurochs were still living in the Jaktorowka 
Forest, and that they were in much the same condition 
as the bison at the present day in Bielowitza, 
having to be supplied by their keepers in winter 
with fodder. 
As regards the ultimate fate of the Jaktorowka 
aurochs, it appears from contemporary documents 
quoted by Jarocki ^ that in the year 1 564 the herd 
still comprised thirty head, namely, twenty-two cows, 
three steers, and five calves, in addition to eight 
solitary bulls. By 1599 the number had, however, 
become reduced to twenty-four, and by 1602 to four, 
^ In Harmsworth's Natural History^ vol. i. p. 622, I have un- 
fortunately confounded the two. 
2 Pisma Rozmaite^ vol. ii. p. 279 ; see also Pusch, Poiens Palaonto- 
logie, Stuttgart, 1837, p. 200. 
