258 Prof. Nilsson on the extinct and existing 
very large and long, near the roots directed outward and some- 
what backward, in the middle they are bent forward, and towards 
the points turned a little upward. 
Synonymy. Urus, Jul. Cesar, Bell. Gall. vi. cap. 28. Plinius. Hist. Nat. ii. 
cap. 37. Gesner, Hist. Animal. (Frankfort, 1620) i. p. 145 with fig.; 2bid. 
p- 187 (skulls). Cuvier, Ossem. Foss. iv. p. 150. tab. 11. fig. 1-4 ; 12. fig. 
3-8 (skulls). Retz. Vet. Akad. Handl. 1802, p. 282. 
The Wild Ox, Griffith, Animal Kingdom, iv. p. 111. Bos primigenius, 
Bojanus, Acta Acad. Cesar. Leopold. Carolin. tom. xiii. p. 422. pl. 11. 
N.B. I have not this treatise at hand. 
Description.—this colossal species of Ox, to Judge from the 
skeleton, resembles almost the tame ox in form and the propor- 
tions of its body, but in its bulk it is far larger. To judge from 
the magnitude of the horn-cores, it had much larger horns, even 
larger than the long-horned breed of cattle found in the Cam- 
ania of Rome. According to all the accounts the colour of this 
ox was black; it had white horns with long black points ; the 
hide was covered with hair like the tame ox, but it was shorter 
and smooth, with the exception of the forehead, where it was 
long and curly. 
The only specimens which we now possess of this extinet wild 
ox, are some skeletons dug up, of which two are at present pre- 
served here at the Museum of the University, where are also 
preserved about a dozen skulls of earlier and later specimens. 
Tue SxeLeron.—Skull.—The forehead smooth between the 
manic race seems to have had in common in the earliest times, and signifies 
forest ox, wild ox (Bos sylvestris): for Ur, or Or, signifies forest or wood, 
wilderness, and is still used in many places in Sweden, Norway and Iceiand. 
‘That the old word Ur or Urd was changed to Or, Ore, Ora, is shown by the 
word Orrhéns, which by the common people in Scania is called Orhons, and 
in many places in Norway it is called Urhéns. The stony and wild tracts 
which surround the base of the mountains are called in Norway Ore, in 
Iceland Urd. In Scania there still exist many old forests which bear the 
name of Ora, and the peasants in some parts of the country say indifferently 
kora till oran and kora till skogen, which is in both instances “ drive to the 
wood.” Also in the older German, Ur signifies wood, forest, but has in 
compositions of later times been changed into Auer; ex. gr. Auerochs, Auer- 
hahn. The Romans, when in Germany, first heard the word Uroes, and 
as they generally changed all names after the form of their own language, 
turned it into Urus. The Uroxen which were conveyed to Rome, and highly 
prized in the bull-fights of the cireus, were by the ignorant confounded with 
the African Antelope Bubalis, wherefore the Urox sometimes by the Latin 
authors is mentioned under the name of Bubalus,—an error which Pliny 
notices. 
By our forefathers in Scandinavia as well as in Germany this wild animal 
is, however, not called Urox, but Ur or Ure, as in the poem of the Nibelunge, 
v. 3762, thence Urahorn in our old Sagas. In certain provinces an angry 
mad bull is still called Ure. The Canton of Uri in Switzerland takes its 
name from this animal, and bears a bull’s head in its arms. 
