From Charles Augustus Bennet, Lord Tankerville [9 February 1862]1
We had more fighting this last year than usual,2 seven Bulls contending for the mastery;3 they endeavoured to drive the Old Bull out of the herd, and Hardy was witness of the fight.4 Two of the younger ones attacked him at the same moment and overthrew him & so disabled him that he walked away discomfited to small wood where he stayed alone for some days & was supposed to be mortally wounded, but this could not be ascertained as under such circumstances they are very dangerous to approach. A few days afterwards the herd was grazing near the wood, and the leader of the opposition singled himself out, and approached the wood where the old “Monarch of the Chase” had been lashing himself up for vengeance (as Virgil describes so truthfully).5 This was exactly what he wanted, out he came, and in two minutes they were in mortal combat; when he got him singly he soon killed his antagonist & then quietly walked back to the herd where he has resumed undisputed sway ever since.
I am very much disposed to adopt Sir Walter Scott’s theory with regard to them. In days comparatively not so very remote, the old primæval Forests extended, as he maintains, from the borders to nearly as far as Glasgow, and the aboriginal breed of Cattle (wh. he calls6
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Post Office directory of Northumberland: Post Office directory of Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, and Durham. London: Kelly and Co. 1858.
Ritvo, Harriet. 1992. Race, breed, and myths of origin: Chillingham cattle as ancient Britons. Representations 39: 1–22.
Summary
Describes battles among bulls for leadership of the [Chillingham] herd.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3441
- From
- Charles Augustus Bennet, 6th earl of Tankerville
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 83: 157–8
- Physical description
- inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3441,” accessed on 27 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3441.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10