A Trip to Pilawin, the Deer-park of Count Joseph Potocki in Volhynia, RussiaLydekker, Richard
History
A Trip to Pilawin, the Deer-park of Count Joseph Potocki in Volhynia, Russia
Lydekker, Richard
Game reserves; Pilawin (Volhynia, Ukraine)
Before bringing these notes to a close it will not, perhaps, be out of
place to devote a few lines to the domesticated ponies and cattle of
the district, as it was one of the objects of my trip to endeavour to
ascertain whether these respectively exhibited any special resemblances
to the wild Przewalski horses (or rather ponies) of the Gobi Desert,
and to the extinct wild ox, or aurochs, which, as already mentioned,
lingered longer in Poland than elsewhere.[5]
[5] I have already published these observations in the _Field_.
A very noticeable feature among the cattle of the district is the
prevalence of black, dark brown, and black-and-white; equally
noteworthy being the frequency among the piebald individuals of a
broad white line down the middle of the back. A similar white band
also characterizes many of the rufous or fawn-coloured types, which,
on the assumption of descent from the aurochs, must be regarded as
retrograde derivatives from the black (or black-and-white) phase.
Herberstain described the wild aurochs as being black with a broad
light-coloured band down the middle line of the back; and it thus
seems highly probable that in the white dorsal line of the partially
albinistic Polish cattle we have a distinct survival of the ancestral
type of colouring. Among the black-and-white cattle of Holland such
a conspicuous white band seems less common, and the same is the case
with English shorthorns. Major Barrett-Hamilton tells me, however, that
it may be observed in some Kerry cattle. The horns of the ordinary
Volhynian cattle, although small, are of the aurochs type.
The large white, or rather pale cream-coloured, Podolian cattle do
not seem to extend much to the north of Schepetowka. At the Berlin
Zoological Gardens I learnt an interesting point in connection with
these cattle, namely, that while the oxen, cows, and calves are wholly
white, the old bulls have black muzzles and ears, as well as a certain
amount of black on the face and limbs. As black in the Javan wild ox
or bantin (_Bos sondaicus_), to say nothing of many antelopes, is
developed only in the adult males, it seems highly probable that the
black points of the Podolian bulls may be the last vestiges of the
aurochs-colouring in this albinistic breed. In connection with this,
it occurs to me that the red specimens of the aurochs which have been
described may have been cows, as it is quite probable that, in some
cases at any rate, the females may have been in the same stage of
colour-evolution as the cow bantin.
[Illustration: A GOOD WAPITI.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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