56 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
That the steer shown in the ilkistration is intended 
to represent an aurochs may be considered certain ; 
but, seeing that it does not apparently occur in the 
original edition, there may be a doubt as to whether 
it was drawn from the actual specimen. From this 
illustration Dr. L. Adametz ^ has, however, suggested 
that the animal depicted represents a small, short- 
horned race of the aurochs, which was the ancestral 
type of the so-called Celtic shorthorn, to which fuller 
reference is made in the next chapter. Herberstein's 
account indicates, however, that the Polish aurochs 
was a huge beast ; and it is practically certain that 
there would not be two races of the species inhabiting 
the same area. Moreover, as Dr. Hilzheimer has 
pointed out, the horns of the dead animal indicate an 
immature animal ; and, whether or no the picture 
was drawn direct from the actual specimen, it seems 
most probable that the three aurochs captured by 
the order of the Polish king were young steers, 
since it would have been a very difficult task at that 
date to capture and bring to Cracow three adult 
bulls. 
Finally, reference may be made to an account of 
an aurochs-hunt by Gedymin, Duke of Lithuania, 
in the year 1320, near Swintoroh, in which an adult 
bull was killed, which will be found in C. Wiirzback's 
Die Sprichtwbrtei' der Polen, Vienna, 1852, 2nd ed.^ 
The horns of this animal were in existence as 
drinking-vessels in 1429. 
^ " Studien liber Bos [brachyceros] europaus, die wilde Stammform der 
Brachyceros - Rassen des europaischen Hausrindes," Jotirn. fur 
Ldndwirtsckaft, 1889, p. 269, and " Uber das in der Ulrich von 
Richentalschen Chronik befindliche Bildnis des Auerochsen," Zeits. f. 
landwirtschaft. Versuchsweseii in Ostcrreich^ 1908, 3 pp. 
2 Vide Hilzheimer, op. cit. p. 74. 
