49 4 BOVID2. 
The former existence of the great Aurochs (Bison 
priscus) in this island is unequivocally established by fossil 
remains of the cranium and horn-cores from various newer 
tertiary freshwater deposits, especially in Kent and Essex, 
and along the valley of the Thames. 
One of these specimens (fig. 205) was dug out of a 
stratum of dark-coloured clay beneath layers of brick- 
earth and gravel, thirty feet below the surface, at Wool- 
wich; it presents the broad convex forehead, the ad- 
vanced position of the horns, which rise three inches 
anterior to the upper occipital ridge, and the obtuse- 
angled junction of the eccipital with the coronal or frontal 
surface of the skull,—all which characters distinguish that 
part of the skeleton of the continental fossil and recent 
Aurochs. The bony cores of the horns extend outwards, 
with a slight curvature upwards, but are relatively longer 
than in the Lithuanian Aurochs: the tips of the horn- 
cores in the fossil are four feet six inches apart; the dis- 
tance from the mid-line between their bases to the ex- 
tremity of the core, in a straight line, is two feet five inches. 
A characteristic cranium with horn-cores of the ison 
priscus, obtained by Mr. Warburton from the fresh-water 
newer pliocene deposits at Walton in Essex, is suspended 
in the Hall of the Geological Society of London. 
Another specimen of the fossil cranium of Bison priscus, 
dug out of a brick-field at Ilford in Essex, presents, with 
the same essential characters as the preceding, relatively 
thicker, shorter, and more curved horn-cores. This fossil 
differs by its shorter horns from the preceding, and more 
resembles the existing Lithuanian Aurochs: it may indi- 
cate the female of the more ancient Aurochs. 
A broken skull with perfect horn-cores of the Bison 
priscus, discovered by Mr. Strickland in the fresh-water 
