BOS PRIMIGENIUS. 499 
clear specific distinction from the Lithuanian Aurochis, prove 
that such an animal was once distributed over Britain, 
where, its antiquity, as a species, equalled that of the 
Mammoth, the tichorhine Rhinoceros, the Speleean Hyena, 
and other extinct mammals of the newer tertiary period. 
We have next to inquire into the evidence of the Uvrus, 
that second kind of aboriginal wild ox, which Cesar 
describes * as being not much inferior to the elephant 
in size, and, though resembling the common bull in colour, 
form, and general aspect, yet as differig from all the 
domestic cattle in its gigantic size, and especially in the 
superior expanse and strength of its horns. 
Of this species we have the same examples, short of the 
still-preserved living animal, as of the Bison; and it is 
most satisfactory to find such proof of the general accuracy 
of the brief but most interesting indications of the primitive 
mammalian fauna of those regions of Europe which may 
be supposed to have presented to the Roman cohorts 
the same aspect as America did to the first colonists of 
New England. 
In the same deposits and localities which have yielded 
remains of the Aurochs (Bison priscus) there have been 
found the remains of another bovine animal, its equal or 
superior in size, but differing from the Aurochs precisely 
as the Roman poets and historians have indicated, by the 
greater length of its horns. The persistent bony supports 
or cores of the horns likewise demonstrate, by their place 
of origin and curvature, the subgeneric distinction of the 
great Urus. from the Bison, and its nearer affinity to the 
* “Tertium est genus eorum qui Uri appellantur. Hisunt magnitudine paulo 
infra elephantos, specie et colore et figura tauri. Magna vis eorum et magna velo- 
citas: neque homini neque fere, quam conspexerint, parcunt.—Amplitudo cor- 
nuum et figura et species multum a nostrorum boum cornibus differt.”— Cesar de 
Bello Gallico, lib. vi. cap. 29. Valpy’s Delphin Classics, 8vo- 1819, p. 254. 
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