AUROCHS, the name of the extinct wild ox of Europe (Bos primigenius), said by R. Lyddeker (I I th edit. E.B.) and others to be the original stock whence the European domestic cattle was derived. It survived in the Jaktozowka forest in Poland until 1627 and an ac count, with woodcuts, appeared in Freiherr von Herberstein's Moscovia, published at Venice in 1550. The aurochs was of great size and black in colour, the British black Pembroke breed being said to resemble them closely, while the semi-wild park cattle of Chillingham and else where are an albino offshoot. Skulls and limb-bones of speci mens standing 6 ft. at the shoulder have been found in the pleistocene gravels of the Thames valley.
On the extinction of B. primigenius, the name "aurochs" was, in common parlance, transferred to the European bison (q.v.).