24 MAMMALIA IN SWISS LAKE-DWELLINGS. CHAP. n. 



has been found at Moosseedorf. The almost universal absence 

 of this quadruped is supposed to imply that the Swiss lake- 

 dwellers were prevented from eating that animal by the same 

 superstition which now prevails among the Laplanders, and 

 which Julius Caesar found in full force amongst the ancient 

 Britons.* 



That the lake-dwellers should have fed so largely on the 

 fox, while they abstained from touching the hare, establishes, 

 says Eiitimeyer, a singular contrast between their tastes and 

 ours. 



Even in the earliest settlements, as already hinted, several 

 domesticated animals occur, namely, the ox, sheep, goat, and 

 dog. Of the three last, each was represented by one race 

 only ; but there were two races of cattle, the most common 

 being of small size, and called by Eiitimeyer Bos brachyceros 

 (Bos longifrons Owen), or the marsh cow, the other derived 

 from the wild bull ; though, as no skull has yet been disco 

 vered, this identification is not so certain as could be wished. 

 It is, however, beyond question that at a later era, namely, to 

 wards the close of the stone and beginning of the bronze period, 

 the lake-dwellers had succeeded in taming that formidable 

 brute the Bos primigenius, the Urus of Caesar, which he de 

 scribed as very fierce, swift, and strong, and scarcely inferior 

 to the elephant in size. In a tame state its bones were some 

 what less massive and heavy, and its horns were somewhat 

 smaller than in wild individuals. Still in its domesticated 

 form, it rivalled in dimensions the largest living cattle, those 

 of Friesland, in North Holland, for example. When most 

 abundant, as at Concise on the Lake of Neufchatel, it had 

 nearly superseded the smaller race, Bos brachyceros, and 

 was accompanied there for a short time by a third bovine 

 variety, called Bos trochoceros, an Italian race, supposed to 



* Commentaries, lib. v. ch. 12. 



