64 Royal Institution : — 



Ruminant ia, with the other artiodactyle (even-toed) Ungulata ; above 

 all, the number of lost links in that interesting chain which have 

 now been restored from the ruins of former habitable surfaces of the 

 earth — all these and other similar facts have concurred in establishing 

 different views of the nature and value of the lluminant order from 

 those entertained by Cuvier, and the majority of systematic naturalists 

 up to 1840. Thus instead of viewing ihQ AnopI other ium as a pachy- 

 derm, the speaker, having regard to the small size of its upper inci- 

 sors and canines, to the retention of the individuality of its two chief 

 metacarj)al and metatarsal bones, and to the non-development of horns 

 at any period of life, would regard it rather as resembling an over- 

 grown embryo-ruminant — of a ruminant in which growth had pro- 

 ceeded with arrest of development. The ordinal characters of the 

 Anoplotherium are those of the Artiodactyla. On the other hand, 

 instead of viewing the Horse as being next of kin to the Camel, or as 

 making the transition from the Pachyderms to the Ruminants, the 

 speaker had been led, by considerations of its third trochanter, its 

 astragalus, its simple stomach and enormous sacculated caecum, the 

 palaeotherian type of the grinding surface of the molars, and the 

 excessive number of the dorso-lumbar vertebrse, to the conviction of 

 the essential affinities of the EquidcB with other perissodactyles (odd- 

 toed hoofed beasts). 



The primitive types of both odd-toed and even-toed Ungulates occur 

 in the eocene tertiary deposits : the earliest forms of the ruminant 

 modification of the Artiodactyla appear in the miocene strata. The 

 fossil remains of the aboriginal cattle of Britain have been found in 

 the newer pliocene strata, in drift-gravels, in brick-earth deposits, 

 and in bone-caves. Two of these ancient cattle {Bovidce) were of 

 gigantic size, with immense horns ; one was a true Bison (Bisoti pris- 

 cus), the other a true Ox (Bos prifnigenius) ; contemporary with these 

 were a smaller species of short-horned Ox {Bos longifrons), and a Buf- 

 falo, apparently identical in species with the Arctic Musk-buffalo 

 (BubaluSy or Ovibos, moschatus). 



The small Ox {Bos longifrons) is that which the aboriginal natives 

 of Britain would be most likely to succeed in taming. They possessed 

 domesticated cattle {pecora) when Csesar invaded Britain. The cattle 

 of the mountain fastnesses to which the Celtic population retreated 

 before the Romans, viz. the Welsh "runt" and Highland "kyloe," 

 most resemble in size and cranial characters the pleistocene Bos lon- 

 gifrons. Prof. Owen therefore regards the Bos longifrons, and not 

 the gigantic Bos primigenius, as the source of part of our domestic 

 cattle. 



From the analogy of colonists of the present day he proceeded to 

 argue that the Romans would import their own tamed cattle to their 

 colonial settlements in Britain. The domesticated cattle of the Ro- 

 mans, Greeks, and Egyptians bore the nearest affinity to the Brahminy 

 variety of cattle in India. As the domestic cattle imported by the 

 Spaniards into South America have, in many localities, reverted to a 

 wild state, so the speaker believed that the half-wild races of white 

 cattle in Chillingham Park, and a few other preserves in Britain, were 

 descended from introduced domesticated cattle. The size of the dew- 



