BOS LONGIFRONS 513 
and Bos primigenius ; m the more recent alluvium we find 
it with the Red Deer and with Roman antiquities.* 
In many localities in Ireland the remains of the Bos 
longifrons are found in the peat itself, from which it may 
be inferred that the species continued to exist after the 
Megaceros became extinct. 
Amongst the numerous specimens of the Bos longifrons 
which have passed through my hands, I have recognised 
two sizes of the horn-cores, the largest yielding a basal 
circumference of seven inches, and a length along the 
outer curve of seven inches; and the smaller size bemg 
that which is given in the preceding table of dimensions : 
the smaller horns may have characterised the female, and 
the larger horns, which have the same curvature and 
rugged surface, the males. Mature Bovine metacarpal 
and metatarsal bones, shorter than those of an ordinary 
domestic Ox, or not exceeding them in size, but thicker 
in proportion to their length, have been found fossil in 
the caves at Kirkdale and Oreston. I suspect these to 
belong to the Bos longifrons ; at all events they testify the 
co-existence of an ordinary-sized Bos with the extinct 
Carnivora of that remote period, and one, therefore, more 
likely to become their prey, than the comparatively gigan- 
tic Bison and Urus. 
It has been remarked, in a former section, that the 
domesticated descendants of a primitive wild race of cattle 
were more likely to be met with in the mountains than 
in the lowlands of Britain, because the aborigines, retain- 
ing their ground longest in the mountain fastnesses, may 
be supposed to have driven thither such domestic cattle as 
they possessed before the foreign invasion, and which we 
* The specimens of Bos longifrons from Diglis are those referred to at p. 475 
as bones “ of small short-horned Cattle.” 
LL 
