
WHITE CATTLE: AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 405 
In the Authorised Version quotations from Isaiah, marginal 
readings make the Unicorn into the Rhinoceros, which, I 
suppose, our divines thought was not such an absurdity under 
the circumstances as the Unicorn. Canon Tristram says the 
Unicorn is the Aurochs or Bison, and writes :—‘“ The Unicorn 
(Heb. Reém), 2.¢., the Auerochs, the extinct wild ox (Bos prim- 
genius), is a familiar emblem of untamed strength and ferocity in 
the earlier books of the Bible, but is only once alluded to after 
the time of David. It has nothing to do with the fabled one- 
horned Unicorn of heraldry, our version being here incorrect. 
It had two horns, as we see from Deut. xxxiii. 17, where its 
horns symbolise the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. It 
became extinct also in Assyria about 1000 s.c., as the country 
became more thickly peopled.” As Canon Tristram found the 
teeth of Bos primigenius in Lebanon, we may take it for 
granted -that the Reém was not the Bison, but the Urus.1 The 
Reém, or Rém (Assyrian Rimu), is the animal which (according 
to legend) had to be towed behind the Ark, as its horns would 
not allow it to get in by the door. We are told that the 
Assyrian monarchs hunted wild oxen of great height and size, 
aS et Ma EOS 1 ee 
17. M. Harris, in The Natural History of the Bible, 1824, says: 
«The wild bull is found in the Syrian and Arabian Deserts [Footnete—The 
Urus of Pliny and the ancients]. It is frequently mentioned by the 
Arabian poets, who are copious in their descriptions of hunting it, and 
borrow many images from its beauty, strength, swiftness, and loftiness of 
its horns. They represent it as fierce and untamable; as being white on 
the back and having large shining eyes. 
Some authors have supposed the buffalo, well known in India, Abyssinia, 
and Egypt, to be intended . . . others (Bochart, Shaw, Lowth, &c.) 
have thought it the orya of the Greeks, or the Egyptian Antelope, 
described by Dr. Shaw under the name of Bekker el wash. [Footnote—It 
is also an inhabitant of Syria, Arabia, and Persia. It is the Antelope Oryx 
of Linneus.’’] . 
Then again—John Brown, of Haddington, in his Dictionary of the 
Bible, 1806, says :—‘* What animal the reém, which we render unicorn, is, 
whether the wild ox, the wild goat or deer, or a creature called the unicorn, 
isnotagreed. . . . Itis certain the Scripture reéms are fierce, strong, 
and almost untamable animals. I suppose the urus or wild ox, which is 
found in Arabia, Hungary, and many other places, is of that kind ; or the 
rhinoceros, which is the strongest of all four-footed beasts, and hath one 
and sometimes two horns growing on its nose about a yard or more in 
length,” 
