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distinct lobes or renules. The more compact suprarenal bodies also 
manifested a subdivided outer surface. 
The above portions of the notes of the dissection of the male Au- 
rochs include all that appeared to be in any degree characteristic 
of the species, or affording any discriminative characters, as com- 
pared with its nearest congeners. The thoracic viscera, as far as 
their morbid condition permitted the comparison, were like those of 
the common Ox. I do not remember to have been so much im- 
pressed in former dissections of Ruminants with the beautiful adap- 
tation of the parts exterior to the large and complex stomach, to its 
support and the facilitating its movements. Much of what is ordi- 
nary inelastic aponeurotic tissue in the abdominal parietes of many 
other quadrupeds, e. g. the larger Carnivora, is metamorphosed into 
the yellow elastic tissue—tissu jaune—in the Aurochs, as in the 
common Ox, and in a still greater degree in the Rhinoceros and 
Elephant. By this change the abdominal muscles are proportionally 
relieved or aided in the sustentation of the capacious and heavily- 
laden digestive reservoirs. 
In the Aurochs, as in the other Ruminants, the disposition of the 
omental sac upon the sternal aspect of the paunch, interposed between 
it and the abdominal walls, makes it perform the office of a serous 
articular sac, two smooth and lubricated surfaces—the inner ones of 
the sac—being apposed to each other, and easily and freely gliding 
on each other; it is like a kind of great ‘tunica vaginalis "—facili- 
tating the spiral peristaltic movements of the paunch, and by the 
layer of fat tending to preserve the warmth of the paunch. 
The skeleton of the Aurochs has been well delineated by Bojanus, 
in connection with an outline of the entire animal, and by Mr. George 
Landseer separately. The general characters of the framework of this 
rare species are very accurately rendered in both these figures. The 
skeleton of the young male Aurochs showed the same characteristic 
elevation of the spinous processes of the anterior dorsal vertebre, 
and the same characteristic number of ribs—fourteen pairs—which 
are shown in the above-cited figures, and which repeated examina- 
tion has established as constant peculiarities of the species. With 
regard to the lengthened spines, I shall only remark on this inter- 
esting morphological peculiarity, that it contributes to illustrate the 
artificial nature of that view of the part commonly called rib, or ver- 
tebral rib, as a bone or element of the skeleton, apart from or be- 
longing to a distinct genus from the other vertebral elements. This 
view originally arose from the contemplation of the proportions of 
the ribs or pleurapophyses and spinous processes as they exist in Man. 
A long and slender form is associated with the idea of a rib as an 
essential character. In the Aurochs we see that the vertebral ele- 
ment called neural spine is longer than the pleurapophysis in the 
second and third dorsal vertebre. But it is anchylosed to the other 
vertebral elements, whilst the pleurapophyses retain their primitive 
freedom, and the dorsal vertebra are characterized as ‘ articulating 
with the ribs.’ This, however, is a periodic, not an essential character. 
At an early period of life the cervical vertebrz also articulate with 
