PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY, 
1839. No. 15. 
January 28. 
SIR Wa. R. HAMILTON, A. M., President, in the Chair. 
Mr. Ball read a paper on the Remains of Oxen found in 
the Bogs of Ireland. 
Having alluded to the occurrence of fossil remains of 
oxen in Britain, and the existence of the Auroch or Wild 
Ox, in some parks in that country, he remarked on the 
old and generally received opinion, that Ireland could not 
furnish any evidence of having ever possessed an indigenous 
ox; and he stated, that a specimen which he received from 
the sub-marine forest, in the Bay of Youghal, seemed to have 
been the core of a horn of the fossil ox, often found in Britain, 
and supposed to have been the Urus ; but this specimen having 
been lost, he alluded to it, to direct the attention of the Aca- 
demy to the subject, in the hope of having his view confirmed. 
He then entered upon the principal object of his paper, which 
was to show, that the remains of oxen found at considerable 
depths in bogs in Westmeath, Tyrone, and Longford, be-_ 
longed to a variety or race, differing very remarkably from 
any noticed in Cuvier’s ‘‘ Ossemens Fossiles,” or any other 
work with which he was acquainted. He concluded by ex- 
pressing a conviction, that Ireland had possessed at least one 
native race of oxen, distinguished by the convexity of the 
upper part of the forehead, by its great proportionate length, 
and by the shortness and downward direction of the horns, 
As this fact seems to have escaped altogether the notice of 
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