At Chillingham, Northumberland, is the most famous herd of wild cattle in Britain, dwelling in natural surrounding in wild, unspoiled parkland studded with trees. This herd has been there since the Middle Ages-for six hundred years, at least, since the park where they roam has been enclosed for that period. The great interest these cattle have for the natural historian lies in the fact that some authorities have considered them to be direct descendants of the ancient aurochs. However, practically all who have studied the subject now believe that the cattle at Chillingham cannot be directly traced to the gigantic aurochs, but probably stem from some ancient breed that was formerly prized by owners of great estates, and which were given the run of their forests.
There have been several herds on private estates in different parts of England, of which the Chillingham herd seems to be the last survivor. The wild aurochs, exterminated centuries ago, is known throughout Britain from its fossil remains, and by the drawings of primitive man. It thrived contemporaneously with the mammoth, and was much larger than any cattle known today. Skulls and bones of specimens standing six feet in height at the shoulder have been found in the pleistocene gravels of the Thames Valley. It is uncertain at what date the aurochs disappeared from Britain. In Scotland it lingered longer than in the south, while it was still abundant in Caesar's time in the Black Forest of Germany.
As far back as the twelfth century it still survived, and in remote areas undoubtedly lived on until comparatively recent times. It is thought to have survived in the Jaktozowka forest in Poland until 1627, and an account of it, with woodcuts, appeared in Freiherr von Herberstein's Moscoviu, published at Venice in 1550. The scientists know this big-boned, long-horned animal as Bos primigenius, and the Romans are said to have hunted it in Britain, although even before their time a smaller beast, the Bos longifrons, had been introduced. This was a useful domestic animal, and was soon widely distributed. Neolithic man may have hunted and killed the aurochs for meat, and possibly some of the calves were captured and tamed. But with the introduction of the Bos longifrons, and the improvement of weapons, there was less room for the aurochs in the economy of man, and intensified slaughter resulted in the destruction of the herds.
The great park at Chillingham. with its area of about 700 acres, and surrounded by a wall, remains almost in its original condition of rough pasture and woodland. This hereditary haunt of the wild cattle was the last remaining fastness, it is said, when they entered it, of the primeval forest of northern England and Scotland.
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