266 Prof. Nilsson on the extinct and earsting 
writer ascribes to the Bison wide horns, or to the Urus long 
hair. 
“Tibi dant varize pectora tigres, 
Tibi villost terga bisontes 
Latisque feri cornibus uri.”—Senec. Hippol. Act. 1. v. 63. 
“Germania... gignit . . .jubatos Bisontes, excellentique vi 
et velocitate Uri, quibus imperitum vulgus Bubalorum nomen 
imponit.”—Plin. Hist. Nat. vin. cap. 5. 
Both these animals were carried to Rome to be viewed by the 
people in the Circus. Martial and others, who were present and 
saw them, describe them as of different species. 
“ [Ili cessit atrox bubalus atque bison.” —Martial, Spect. 23. 
For my part, | am convinced, from all these combined reasons, 
that our two largest species of fossil Ox were known to the Ro- 
mans under the name of Urus and Bison. They are also spoken 
of by German writers of the middle age. In the poem of the 
‘ Nibelungen,’ v. 3761, a chase is described which took place in a 
mountaimous and woody tract (v. 3775) in the neighbourhood 
of Worms, where it is related that Siegfried killed one Visent 
and four Uri :— 
* Darnach schluch er schiere einen Visené und einen Elch, 
Starker Ure viere und einen grimmen Schelch *.” 
In Griffith’s admirable ‘Animal Kingdom,’ an English ela- 
boration of Cuvier’s ‘ Régne Animal,’ to which I had not pre- 
viously had access, is given in the 4th book, p. 416, an engraving 
of the Bos Urus. The original painting, which was found in the 
possession of a merchant at Augsburg, and copied for that work 
by Hamilton Smith, is supposed to have been executed in the 
beginning of the sixteenth century. This old painting, which is 
upon a square piece, had in one corner the remains of a (noble) 
coat of arms and the word Thur in gilt German characters almost 
effaced. If the plate be a true copy of the original, it shows 
plainly that it was made from a wild and not a tame animal. 
Such an exterior and such horns no ¢ame animal has; but just 
such horns and with just such a curvature and direction, to judge 
from the length and direction of the horn-cores, our fossil, great, 
flat-foreheaded Ox must have had. Asa further proof of this my 
conviction, it may be added, that I possess a war-horn in bronze, 
dug from a depth of 6-8 feet out of a turf-bog in southern 
* Many have been the conjectures as to what animal is meant by Schelch. 
Biisching has translated it by Brandhirsch; others are of opinion that it 
was the now fossil Irish Cervus euryceros ; but all this is only conjecture. In 
the same poem it is said (v. 8756), that Siegfried’s hound (Bracke) started 
“ein ungefigen leuwen”’ which Siegfried shot, with bow and arrow, and 
which made but three springs after being shot. But it is probable that by 
Leuwen is meant Lo, the Lynx. Inv. 3755 is mentioned “ ein vil starchez 
halpfwul,” by which probably is meant a Glutton or Badger. 
