232 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



bth. Yasey has pointed out thai, in not being in heat at anv 



particular time, they differ from every known wild species 



of cattle, amonsj which the ruttins^ season invariably 



occurs at a particular period of the year. Herberstein 



states that the Thur or XJrus produces its young in spring, 



and that such as happened to be born in autumn rarely 



survived. Instead of being wild, the difficulty in the 



case of the white park cattle is not so much to tame 



them as to keep them wild. 



At this point I would direct attention to three descriptive labels 



placed in the galleries of the British Museum of Natural History, 



two in the Geological Department and one in the Zoological. 



The first, headed " Gi^an- 

 tic Aborisfinal Wild Oxen 

 of Britain," says, " al- 

 thouo'h thev surpassed in 

 size, and in the greater 

 expanse and strength of 

 their horns, anv of our 

 modern breeds of cattle, 

 they were, in all proba- 

 bility, the ancestors of 

 the larger existing cattle 

 of Western Europe. 

 The wild cattle preserved 

 in Chillingham Park, 

 Northumberland. mav 

 perhaps be the last sur- 

 vivinfif descendants of Bos 

 primigenius of the Pleistocene period, very considerably reduced 

 in size, and modified in every respect by their diminished range 

 and contact with man." This is the orthodox view very 

 cautiously stated. 



The second label in the Geological Department deals with 

 "Celtic Shorthorns," and says:— "The small Celtic Shorthorn 

 breed of cattle, once so characteristic of the whole of the British 

 Islands. This is the JBos longifrons of Owen [Fig. 5], Some of 

 the skulls are of the hornless variety. Bos longifrons was 

 probably the ancestor of the small breeds of Welsh and Scotch 



Fig. 5. — Bos longifrons, Burwell Fen, Cam- 

 bridge. Woodwardian Museum. 



