1856.] and the Aboriginal Cattle of Britain. 259 



period of life, would regard it rather as resembling an overgrown 

 embryo-ruminant — of a ruminant in which growth had proceeded 

 with arrest of development. The ordinal characters of the ano- 

 plotherium 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 

 astragulus, 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 vertebrae, to the conviction 

 of the essential affinities of the Equidca with otlier 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 tlie 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 (Bison prisons), the other a true ox (Bos primigenius) ; 

 contemporary with these was a smaller species of short-horned ox 

 (Bos longifrons), and a buffalo, apparently identical in species with 

 the Arctic musk- buffalo (Bubalus, 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 Caesar 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 Icmgifrons. 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 Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians bore the nearest affinity to the 

 Brahminy variety of cattle in India. As the domestic cattle im- 

 ported by the Spaniards into South America have, in many loca- 

 lities, 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 domesti- 

 cated cattle. The size of the dew-lap, and an occasional rudiment 

 of the hump in these white cattle, as well as the approximation to 

 the light grey colour characteristic of the Brahminy race, seemed to 

 point to their primitive oriental source. But the speaker could not 

 regard the pure \Vhite colour as natural to a primitive wild stock 

 of oxen. It is now maintained by careful destruction of all piebald 

 calves that are produced by the so-preserved half-wild breeds. 



