8 Oxen 



extreme cold that is known. But this is by no means all, since in many 

 parts of the world oxen are or were employed as beasts of burden or 

 draught, which in some respects are superior even to the horse ; and were it 

 not for the services of the yak, it would be almost an impossibility to 

 traverse the high plateau ot Tibet and some other districts of Central 

 Asia. Several members of the group have been domesticated since very 

 early times, two of these having no wild representatives now living. 



By many writers the oxen are divided into several genera, although, as 

 remarked by Mr. Blanford, such divisions seem scarcely worthy of that 

 rank. Moreover, zoologists are by no means in accord as to the number 

 of groups into which they should be divided. In the present work the 

 groups adopted are given the rank ot sub-genera only. 



i. Typical or Taurine Group — Sub-Genus Bos 



Taurus, H. Smith, in Griffith's Aniwal Kingdom, vol. v. p. 375 (1827), 

 as a sub-genus. 



Vrus, H. Smith, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 417 (1827), as a sub-genus. 



Zclnis, Blyth, Jouni. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xxix. p. 282 (i860). 



Characters. — Typically the horns quite or nearly cylindrical, situated far 

 apart from one another on a ridge forming the extreme vertex ot the skull, 

 which overhangs the proper occipital surface of the latter ; forehead of 

 skull flat and elongated, and a long interval between the bases of the horn- 

 cores and the sockets of the eyes, which are not tubular ; nasal bones 

 relatively elongated. Tail very long, reaching to below the hocks. Line 

 of back nearly straight. Hair uniformly short, and legs apparently with- 

 out white " stockings." 



In the vertebral column the neural spine ' of the seventh or last 



' The neural spines arc the tall vertical processes arising from the summits ot the vertebra? and 

 forming the ridge of the back ; the dorsal vertebra- are those to which the ribs are attached, the 

 cervicals being those in front and the lumbars those immediately behind them. 



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