BOS LONGIFRONS. 509 
unless the Bos trochoceros of M. v. Meyer* be actually 
a distinct and contemporary species. If, however, we 
admit the justice of Cuvier’s remark, and regard the great 
Urus as a variety of Bos taurus, it is not the less an ori- 
ginal one, since it was coeval with the Aurochs, and ex- 
isted long anterior to all records and evidences of domesti- 
cated cattle. It was as wild as the Aurochs in the time 
of Cesar; and there is as little proof of its having ante- 
cedently given origin to the domestic cattle of the Romans 
as that the Aurochs itself did, 
I have already adverted to the high probability that 
the Roman colonies in Gaul, Belgium, and Britain, de- 
rived their domestic cattle from those of the parent State, 
instead of by the difficult task of subjugating the very 
formidable species of the fastnesses which those colonists 
were in progress of reclaiming for the service of civilised 
life. But, if it should still be contended that the natives of 
Britain, or any part of them, obtained their cattle by tam- 
ing a primitive wild race, neither the Bison nor the great 
Urusenre so likely to have furnished the source of their 
herds as the smaller primitive wild species, or original 
variety of Bos, which is the subject of the present section. 
A. frontlet and horn-core of this species formed part of 
the original collection of fossils of Joun Hunvrer, in the 
manuscript catalogue of which collection it was recorded 
as having been obtained “ from a bog in Ireland.” I had 
entered it, in the catalogue of the museum of the College 
of Surgeons in 1830, under the name of Bos brachyceros, 
on account of its peculiarly short horns; and, after the 
imposition of that name by Mr. Gray upon a wild African 
existing species of Bos, I changed the name to Bos longi- 
frons, wider which the remains of this interesting species 
* * Paleeologica,’ p. 96. 
