THE WILD OX OF EUROPE 297 



other remains have hitherto been identified from deposits 

 of Roman or later age. It is, of course, possible that it 

 may have survived till the epoch in question, or later, in 

 the more remote parts of the kingdom, and Prof. Dawkins 

 has even suggested that the tauri sylvestres mentioned by 

 Fitzstephen, who wrote his " Life of Beckett " in the reign 

 of Henry II., as inhabiting the forests round London, 

 were aboriginally wild animals. On the other hand, they 

 may equally well have been cattle that had run wild, and 

 this is confirmed by Bishop Leslie, of Ross, who stated in 

 1598 that the Bos sylvestris of the Caledonian Forest was 

 white. 



On the Continent, we have the evidence of Caesar as to 

 the co-existence of the aurochs or urus in the Hercynian, 

 or Black, Forest with the bison and the elk. And it is 

 related how the young German warriors of that time 

 prepared themselves for war by hunting and killing the 

 fierce aurochs. A remarkable confirmation of the truth of 

 Caesar's statement as to the co-existence of the aurochs 

 and bison on the Continent during the period of the Roman 

 occupation is afforded by the discovery in Swabia, during 

 the widening of a railway in 1895, of two statuettes of oxen 

 belonging to the Roman period. They were dug up in loam 

 at a depth of nine feet below the surface, and have been 

 described and figured by Prof E. Fraas.* The one, as 

 shown by the great elevation and depth of the fore- 

 quarters, clearly represents the bison. The other, on the 

 contrary, is as evidently intended for the aurochs. The 

 horns have been broken off in both specimens, but what 

 remains of them agrees in each instance with the form 

 they should assume. In stating that both species inhabited 

 the Black Forest contemporaneously, it is not meant that 

 * "Fundberichte aus Schwaben," vol. vii. p. ^il (1899). 



