232 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
dth. Vasey has pointed out that, in not being in heat at any 
particular time, they differ from every known wild species 
of cattle, among which the rutting season invariably 
oceurs at a particular period of the year. Herberstein 
states that the Thur or Urus produces its young in spring, 
and that such as happened to be born in autumn rarely 
survived. Instead of being wild, the difficulty in the 
case of the white park cattle is not so much to tame 
them as to keep them wild. 
At this point I would direct attention to three descriptive labels 
placed in the galleries of the British Museum of Natural History, 
two in the Geological Department and one in the Zoological. 
The first, headed ‘‘ Gigan- 
tic Aboriginal Wild Oxen 
of Britain,” says, ‘“al- 
though they surpassed in 
size, and in the greater 
expanse and strength of 
their horns, any of our 
modern breeds of cattle, 
they were, in all proba- 
bility, the ancestors of 
the larger existing cattle 
of Western Europe. 
The wild cattle preserved 
in Chillingham Park, 
Northumberland, may 
Fic. 5.—Bos longifrons, Burwell Fen, Cam- perhaps be the last sur- 
bridge. Woodwardian Museum. 

viving descendants of Bos 
primigenius of the Pleistocene period, very considerably reduced 
in size, and modified in every respect by their diminished range 
and contact with man.” This is the orthodox view very 
cautiously stated. 
The second label in the Geological Department deals with 
“ Celtic Shorthorns,” and says:— “The small Celtic Shorthorn 
breed of cattle, once so characteristic of the whole of the British 
Islands. This is the Bos longifrons of Owen [Fig. 5]. Some ot 
the skulis are of the hornless variety. Bos longifrons was 
probably the ancestor of the small breeds of Welsh and Scotch 
