48 Oxen 



iii. The Leptobovine Group — Sub-Genus Leptobos {Ext/'/ict) 



Leptobos, Rutimeyer, Ahh. sclnvevz. pal. Gcs. vol. i. p. 167 (1878) ; 

 Lydekker, Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mits. pt. ii. p. 36 (1885). 



Characters. — Apparently allied, especially in the shortness of the skull 

 and its nasal bones and the curvature of the cylindrical horns, to the 

 banting, but with the horn-cores ot the bulls situated tar below the vertex 

 of the skull, midway between the occiput and the orbits, and the cows 

 hornless. 



The sub-genus, or genus, was originally described on the evidence of 

 hornless bovine skulls from the Tertiary deposits of the Val d'Arno, which 

 were regarded as specifically distinct from the horned Bos c/atus o't the same 

 deposits. But there can be little or no hesitation in accepting the view 

 of Dr. Forsyth-Major that the one is merely the female of the other. 



In the position of the horn-cores of the male and their absence in the 

 female, the members of this group must be regarded as the most primitive 

 representatives of the oxen at present known. Their apparent affinity to 

 the banting is in harmony with the well-ascertained tact that several of 

 the mammalian genera now living in the Malayan countries are related to 

 extinct European Tertiary forms. 



Distribution. — The southern part of the Western Holarctic, and a 

 portion of the Oriental region during the Pliocene and Plistocene epochs. 



I. The Etruscan Ox — Bos elatus [Extinct) 



Bos elatus, Pomel, Catalogue Me'thoJiqui\ p. 114 (1853) ; Lydekker, Cat. 

 Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mas. pt. ii. p. 19 (1885). 



Bos etruscus. Falconer, Palaontological Memoirs., vol. ii. p. 481 (1868) ; 

 Dawkins, Quart. 'Jourti. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxvi. p. 394 (1880) ; Forsyth- 

 Major, ibid. vol. xli. p. 6 (1885). 



