420 Prof. Nilsson on the extinct and existing 
Scania’s turf-bogs, the Bison was much less common there than 
the Bos primigenius and Bos longifrons, whose fossil remains are 
found in much greater number. The few fossil bones of the 
Bison which have hitherto been noticed with us, consist of one 
old and one young cranium, and also one skeleton, all which 
have been dug up from a turf-bog in the districts of Skytts and 
Herresta, therefore in the most southern districts of the country. 
It ought also to be observed, that in Denmark numerous fossil 
bones of the Urus have been found, but hitherto not one single 
bone of the Bison has been discovered. 
In a great part of Europe this colossal Ox has existed during 
the historic period ; but in the English isles it appears to have 
been extinct already at the time they were first known to history. 
For in Cesar’s time, when the Roman legions traversed the 
forests of France, part of Germany and Belgium, they there found 
both the Bison and the Urus; but in no place is it mentioned 
that the victorious Romans in England met with any species of 
large wild ox ; which seems to show that both the Urus and Bison 
were already extinct in that country. On the continent, where 
they continued to be found in the large wild forests even long 
after Cesar’s time, they seem to have disappeared by degrees, 
through the increase of population and culture, first in the west 
and afterwards in the more eastern tracts of the country. In 
the Vosges and the Ardennes, wild oxen were found even in 
King Gontram’s time; and history mforms us that he put to 
death one of his chamberlains, the nephew of the same, and a 
forester, because, without permission, they shot a Bubalus 
(Wild Ox) in the Vosges (Cuv. Recherches, iv. p. 117). In 
the Wilkina Saga*, hunts are described in the forest of ‘ Wals- 
lunga’ (probabiy the forest of Thurmgia) and the ‘ Ungara’ 
forest, in which several young (ten), and one old and very large Vi- 
sunt were killed. One sees by this whole account that princes 
hunted these large animals in their forests, and were exceedingly 
careful of them. In the old Leges Allemanorum (from the 6th 
and 7th centuries) it is enacted, that if any one stole or killed a 
Bison, Buffalo (Urus ?), or Deer, he should be mulcted in a large 
sum of money (see Baer in Wiedem. Arch. 1839, p. 75). In 
the poem of the Nibelungen from the 12th century, the Bison 
is spoken of (Visent) as among the animals which were killed at 
a hunt in the forest near Worms: Lucas Dawid relates in the 
‘Preussens Kronik,’ that about the vear 1240 there was found 
in the land much game, consisting of Uroxen, Visents, wild Horses, 
Elks aud others (see Baer, ut sup. p. 71). The prince Wra- 
* Peringskiold’s edition, Stockholm, 1715, p. 229. Peringskiold translates, 
quite improperly, Visunt by Kronhjort (Crown-deer), which misrepresents the 
meaning of the Saga. 
