284 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



interesting observations on the fossils of that species, but he confines 

 himself mostly to a colossal ox, which he supposes to be the Urus 

 mentioned by Csesar in his Commentaries. This colossal species of ox, 

 to judge from the skeleton, resembled the tame ox in the form 

 and the proportions of its body, but in its bulk it was far larger. Ac- 

 cording to all accounts, the color of the ox was black, and it had white 

 horns, with long black points ; the hide was covered with hair like the 

 tame ox, but it was shorter and smooth. The whole length of one 

 skeleton, which was not full grown at the time of the animal's death, 

 from the nape to the end of the rump bones, is 9 feet, and, with the 

 head, the whole length of the animal is about 12 feet, while the height 

 is 6 to 6| feet. The circumference of the crown of the horn is 14 

 inches, the length of the spinal column 7 feet 7 inches, and the greatest 

 length of one of the middle ribs 2 feet 5 inches. It will thus be 

 seen that Caesar's remark, that it was " in size little inferior to the 

 elephant," was not so much exaggerated as some have supposed. 

 We have good proof that this colossal species of ox has lived in 

 Europe since the country has been inhabited by men, for a few years 

 since a skeleton was found, one of the bones of which has in it the 

 wound caused by some weapon, which anatomists all agree must have 

 been thrown by the hand of man. 



THE TRILOBITES OF BOHEMIA. 



M. BARRANDE, of Prague, who is preparing a work on the Silurian 

 System of Bohemia, in studying the numerous trilobites which he 

 has collected in that country, has made a remarkable discovery in 

 respect to these, the most ancient fossil crustaceans known. He has 

 traced for the first time the developement of a trilobite from its em- 

 bryonic state to its adult condition, and has observed twenty succes- 

 sive stages, during which this one species undergoes very remarkable 

 changes of organization, passing from a simple disk-like body to a 

 fully formed trilobite, with seventeen free thoracic segments and two 

 caudal joints. This discovery is highly important to geologists, as it 

 diminishes the number of the so-called species, it being ascertained 

 that, in a recent work on these same trilobites of Bohemia, the authors 

 made no less than ten genera and eighteen species out of a part only 

 of the stages of metamorphosis of the single individuals. London 

 Athen&um, July 7. 



FOSSIL APE. 



M. PAUL GERVAIS has just discovered, in the upper tertiary stratum 

 of Montpellier, in France, a species of fossil ape, probably belonging 

 to the macaque genus. On comparing this discovery with previous 

 ones, it appears that fossil apes have been discovered in the three 

 principal tertiary strata of Western Europe, that is to say, in every 

 part of the level of sedimentary earths in which the bones of mam- 

 malia abound. If man had existed at the period when these strata 

 were deposited, the non-discovery hitherto of the slightest trace of 



