 2t4 WILD WHITE CATTLE. 
aboriginal wild breed of the British forests—the 
Urus of Caesar (Bos primigenius)—or whether, as 
others assert, it has at some period long remote 
been imported from abroad and since become feral, 
are questions upon which, at present, considerable 
difference of opinion prevails. The weight of scien- 
tific opinion, however, seems to favour the view that 
these wild white cattle were descended from the 
Urus, either by direct descent through wild animals 
from the wild bull, or less directly through domesti- 
cated cattle deriving their blood principally from 
him. That the Urus existed in Britain in prehistoric 
times, and was contemporaneous with man of the 
Paleolithic or older Stone Age, must be admitted. 
In the fluviatile deposits of the Thames, and in some 
other places, the remains of the two have been found 
together,* and instances have been recorded in 
which the remains of the Urus have been found 
contemporaneous with man of the Neolithic or 
later Stone Age. In the Zoological Museum at 
Cambridge, where there is a remarkably fine skeleton 
of this animal from Burwell Fen, may be seen the 
greater portion of a skull from the same locality, in 
which a neolithic celt was-found, and still remains 
imbedded.t Another skull of this animal was found 
in amoss in Scotland, in conjunction with bronze 
* The Rev. Samuel Banks, Rector of Cottenham, possesses a fine 
skull of the Urus, found in Cottenham Fen, the fractured bone of which 
elearly testifies that it was destroyed by a human weapon. 
+ See Carter, Geological Magazine, November, 1874. Both the 
specimens here referred to are figured in Miller and Skertchley’s “ Fen- 
land, Past and Present,”’ p. 321. 
