The Savannah morning news., 1900-06-22
PREHISTORIC GAME.
Animals Which Pristine Man Was
Wont to Hunt

From the London STANDARD
some OF the big game which early races
OF men hunted apparently vanished fro,,
EUROPE almost simultaneously with tneno
toi "Ilat was their fate, and where on
tne earth they are now represented. unIess
by the Esqumaux, we cannot tal1 rh.
next race at any rate, the Neollthlc folk.
'Hey are now called, whose wearon,
anu tolls' made after more elabotate No =
telHS' are often polished. seem ,o -
come as conquerors. Perhaps the peu,c ~
efs Ioresaw that the aborigioes MIL -
ii9e 10 lhconVenient racial questions ..1
d9 acltus says, they made e1IIt,,so
ana called il peace" S0ii'u ue'
,o neit with the older race several ~ IT,
rdi ger wild animals disappeared a. 80.
VIM, i.oil the British Isles, if not tron,
tNol thWestern Europe The rnauroo.h 49, ". "a.
the woody rhinoceros. the birr1a,lot aoo
r rle edoer-toothed tiger, which hsd 81
eauy become extremely rare ~ 49, -.
TtiC'' perhaps. also, the lion ana -.
tney may have disappeared from onr 0 ~,
Ia,5 nt cause d general sinking of Inc
tree eplaceo many broad. grassy or
con1nIat o pains with shallow seas, ard
the continent i'dAH from
49,. : iIls change, and the incoming Of ha,
.eI-armed and more cunning race ~ 80
81 81 = may nave turned the scale distino+'.-
~ mans favor. Still some big eap ,,.0. .c
,ilailleu Tor the Britain of thai sga ~
II ~ H4lAe iehe from that which we inbah.
large districts Of forest and mo Sos
such as Were the backwoods OF Canaaa
anu sun are some parts of Contra, Afsi'.,
iieIe "lid animals found ample nro+oo
non non, ana had no more to dread from 49,,
.Ian man from the wolf or the Ivnx G.
Sro! teildeer remained, at any rate In the
worm; perhaps. also. the so.caIIe5 -
Elk. together with the bison and ~ AiIsn
Iochs- Some thirty years ago a sln,, .
et9 ldtler was dug out of a C,arohridoa-
snLIe rem ana in it stone ak was fo,1ra
IH1pedded in the forehead. II wae 49,.
e.i Oh snort, apparently snapped by striL-
.n against the bony orbit of the eve as a.
daIi,' a,.iiiai hao been struck by a bloow
ue44Eereu from one side.
The Aurochs Hunt.
ms, however is by no means the on,v
- Oot mat the Neolithic Briton hunted the
auI oChs. It's bones and teeth have -,
round at Cissbury Camp. and its rer, Del
. alouiiI me pile dwelling In Barton Mere
near Bury st. Edmunds, shows that -
survived into the Bronze Age. II c,aa
however already rare and probably bad
disappeared when Caesar landed. Rut A.
iiIseIeu much longer on the continent
were SUN almost wholly covered nv for-
ests the names of which survive-as tn
the case or our own Weald-in the ''waIds.,
sprlhkled over the modern maps ~ :ssr-
many. fS VI 'IeF-
IN the great Hercynian forest the an
icons existed in the days of Julius Gaze
sar, as he writes in his Gallo Wa. ~
the sixth century, il occurred ,ho ~
rarely, in the province of Maine ana ~
hunted IN the ninth by Chares the Great
IN the forests near Aachen century
idter IL must have been living in Switzer-
Iand' Tor the chronicles Of an Abhav
make mention of its flesh. The aurochs
eAIsteo near Worms in the twelfth CEN
fury, for the staying of four is nnentionsd
IN the Nibelungen Lied, and il Is ger e.
an believed to have fingered in Germany
ull the sixteenth or posi- BILE even the sew
enteenth cntury. INV
Possible Descendants.
But has it left any descendants7 our
domestic cattle, no doubt have sprung
from a wild stock, but probably have
more than one origin. Some NAV he
traced back to the Celtic shorthorn CRos
longifrons), already domesticated in Neo-
hthlc times, and difficult to connect with
the aurochs; for il was much smaller
with a different-shaped head. and whetn,
er 1t was originally wild in Europe is a
matter OF dispute. At the present tey II
Is most nearly represented in that state
ny some of the smaller oxen of Southern
Asia. but its pedigree cannot be traced
with certainty AT any rate, IL rem aimed
the sole domestic OK in Britain till the
English conquest, and is regarded by some
as the ancestor of our small eWleh and
Highland cattle.
Another domestic variety or species in
prehistoric times was called Bos tronto-
sus' from a peculiar bony prominence be-
tween the horn cores, which are rather
small It's pedigree also is uncertain, but
probably it is more nearly related to the
Celtic shothorn than to the aurochs In
closer alliance with the latter Is a third
variety. found in the Swiss pile DWELLINGS
with the other two. and called Bos taurus
which probab has its mark on more than
one breed of our larger domestic cattle.
The English invaders seem to have
brought with them a breed Of white CT q
tie with red ears. which can be traced in
all parts Of Britain occupied by their ms
tiers, and were probably introduced into
Ireland by the Norwegians and Danes.
Some writer's have claimed the wild cot
tie OF Chillingham, Charley. Cadzow. and
one or two other localities as the dir ct
descendants Of the aurochs, but Prof
Boyd Dawkins considers them 70 rope
sent the cattle introduced " the Ergi h
invaders which strayed and bccam W
as horses have done in South Amerlca
Thus, though they may have been entitled
a we have said, TO claim the aurochs 90
an ancestor they cannot be regarded as
its direct representatives. for they are
really domestic cattle which have lapsad