lation of the ox and kindred species-had lived in Britain at the time of the Mammoth, sharing with many varieties of extinct mammalia the luxuriant herbage that distinguished the flora of Northern Europe prior to the glacial period. Its fossil remains, along with those of the elephant, rhinoceros, &c., have been dug up from the drift and fresh-water deposits of the Newer-Pliocene formation. There is little doubt that, outliving many of its earlier associates, and finding new companions as it passed from age to age, the ox, of one or other variety, has since that remote period had constant existence in Northern Europe.

The varieties of the ox which in the prehistoric era roamed in the sweet freedom of nature through the British forests and marshes have been arranged by palæontologists into two main divisions. The line of demarcation-to minds of a practical turn somewhat arbitrary-seems well enough understood by naturalists. The two types or species differed materially in size, and also, to a varying extent, in some other points of lesser importance. In the strictest sense of the term, however, they presented no structural differences. The larger was named the Bos primigenius by Bojanus, and is likewise known as the Bos urus. To the smaller, Owen gave the designation of Bos longifrons. Other species of fossil European oxen are spoken of by various writers, notably the Bos frontosus and the Bos trochoceros, but all these are now generally regarded as identical with either the Bos primigenius or the Bos longifrons. Rütimeyer considers the Bos trochoceros to be the female of an early domesticated form of the Bos primigenius, and to be the progenitrix of the Bos frontosus.

The Bos urus is described as having been an animal of enormous size and ferocious temper. When the Romans first penetrated into the heart of Britain, more than half a century before the dawn of the Christian era, they found the great urus roaming wildly through the forests and marshes. Cæsar describes this animal as being in

size little inferior to the elephant, but in colour, form, and general appearance resembling the common bull. "Great is their strength, and great their swiftness," says the Roman leader, "and they spare neither man nor wild beast that comes within their view. The Germans take and kill them in pitfalls made with great care and trouble. Their young men inure themselves to this labour, and exercise themselves in this kind of hunting; and they who have killed the most, publicly produce their horns in testimony of their exploits, and receive praise. But it is impossible to accustom them to man, and to tame them; and to this, even the very young ones are no exception. The great size, form, and beauty of their horns make them differ much from the horns of our oxen: these they collect with great care, and, surrounding the margin of them with silver, use them as cups at their largest banquets." This is an interesting picture drawn by a graphic writer who had seen the huge monster careering wildly in all its pristine majesty. Pliny describes the urus as an animal of "excessive strength and swiftness," and states that both the urus and the bison were conveyed from Germany to Rome, and "viewed by the people in the circus."

Numerous skeletons, or parts of skeletons, supposed to belong to the Bos urus type, have from time to time been discovered in the British Isles, and elsewhere in Europe, and from these various scientific observers and celebrated naturalists have given us sketches of this ancient variety of cattle. Professor Nilsson, writing of the urus, says: "The forehead is flat, the edge of the neck is straight, the horns very large and long, near the roots directed outward, and somewhat backward; in the middle they are bent forward, and towards the front turned upward. This colossal species of ox, to judge from the skeleton, resembles almost the tame ox in form and the proportions of its body; but in its bulk it is far larger. To judge from the magnitude of its horn-cores, it

had much larger horns, even larger than the long-horned breed of cattle found in the Campania of Rome. According to all accounts, the colour of this ox was black; it had white horns, with long black points; the hide was covered with hair like the tame ox, but it was shorter and smooth, with the exception of the forehead, where it was long and curly." Rütimeyer, Owen, Bell, Boyd Dawkins, Smith, and others, give similar descriptions of the urus, differing slightly in minor details. There is uncertainty. as to the colour of the urus. Some say it was black; others believe it to have been white.

By various writers elaborate measurements are presented of the urus, showing that the animal must have been of huge dimensions, far exceeding any living variety of cattle. The length of the body "from the nape to the end of the rump - bones," is stated at about 9 feet; and the length of the head "from the occipital ridge to the anterior border of the intermaxillary bones," at 2 feet 4 inches, making the entire length of the animal no less than about 11 feet 4 inches. Then the height over the mane is said to have been 6 feet to 6 feet 6 inches. The horns carried by the urus must have been of great size. The horn-cores of the various skulls found in Scotland and elsewhere measure, along the outer curvature, about 2 feet or 2 feet 2 inches in length; while the span between the tips of the horn-cores is stated at 2 feet 2 inches, and their circumference at the base at 1 foot 2 inches. The breadth of the forehead, between the horncores, would seem to have been about 9 inches.

The Bos longifrons has been represented as smaller in size than many of the existing varieties of cattle. Professor Owen, in his work on 'British Fossil Mammals and Birds,' says: "This small but ancient species or variety of ox belongs, like our present cattle, to the subgenus Bos, as is shown by the form of the forehead, and by the origin of the horns from the extremities of the oc

cipital ridge; but it differs from the contemporary Bos primigenius, not only by its great inferiority of size, being smaller than the ordinary breeds of domestic cattle, but also by the horns being proportionately much smaller and shorter as well as differently directed, and by the forehead being less concave. It is indeed usually flat; and the frontal bones extend farther beyond the orbits, before they join the nasal bones, than in the Bos primigenius. The horn-cores of the Bos longifrons describe a single short curve outwards and forwards in the plane of the forehead, rarely rising above the plane, more rarely sinking below it: the cores have a very rugged exterior, and are usually a little flattened at the upper part."

The accounts of other writers differ but little. The Bos longifrons would seem to have been short in the body, and to have had legs almost as slender as those of the deer. Professor Nilsson, in a paper " On the Extinct and Existing Bovine Animals of Scandinavia," published in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' says that, as far as he knew, the Bos longifrons was "the smallest of the ox tribe that had lived wild in our portion of the globe;" the whole length," from the muzzle to the end of the rumpbone," having been "about 6 feet 8 inches." The skull would seem to have been long and narrow. The various specimens found and preserved measure in length from the supra-occipital ridge to front edge of intermaxillary bone about 16 to 18 inches; from roots of horn-cores to upper edge of orbits, about 3 to 4 inches; breadth of forehead between roots of horn-cores, from 5 to 6 inches; breadth of skull across middle of orbits, from 6 to 7 inches; circumference of horn-cores at base, from 4 to 7 inches; length of horn-cores along outer-curvature, from 3 to 7 inches; and span from tip to tip of horn-cores, from 9 to 16 inches.

From the bison and other varieties of humped cattleBos priscus, Bos babulus, Bos indicus, &c.-these two types,

just described in detail, are generally regarded as specifically distinct. It is not denied that the Bos urus and Bos longifrons, as well as the existing races of non-humped cattle, all come within the one generic-or rather subgeneric-distinction, the Bos taurus. Naturalists, however, as we have seen, have arranged the ancient varieties of humpless cattle into two main species or types, the Bos urus and the Bos longifrons; and while they would seem to agree that these two species represent the sub-generic division to which domesticated cattle belong, they have been unable to arrive at anything like unanimity of opinion as to which type or "species" has been perpetuated in existing races, or as to whether both have been so preserved; and, if both have been preserved, in what varieties each type has its purest representatives. Some naturalists tell us that our living races of domesticated cattle are pure but modified descendants of the huge urus. Others claim the deer-like longifrons as the progenitors of existing races. Perhaps the most generally accepted notion is, that existing domesticated cattle are the intermixed descendants of the two ancient types.

Rütimeyer gives it as his belief that some of the larger domesticated races on the Continent and in England, as well as the semi-wild cattle in Lord Tankerville's Park at Chillingham, are the descendants of the urus. The Chillingham cattle, he says, are less altered from the true urus type than any other known breed. Cuvier, Bell, and others, would seem to go the length of believing that our entire stock of living cattle are "the degenerate descendants of the great urus." Nilsson considers that the existing races of cattle may probably have been derived from the Bos urus, the Bos longifrons, and the Bos frontosus. Boyd Dawkins and Darwin are of opinion-and the one quotes the other to this effect-that "European cattle are descended from two species"-namely, the urus and the longifrons. In his interesting work on 'The Wild White